


Avalanche

by Fyre



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Complete, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Past Mind Control, Peggy Carter is the Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Violence, Winter Soldier AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-01-25 14:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 50
Words: 82,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1652261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had no name that she could recall. She did not need a name, anymore than she needed a home or comfort. She only had her assignments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unmasked

**Author's Note:**

> It seems that when I'm faced with a stressful life event, my solution is to write ALL THE AUS. In this case, Peggy Carter as the Winter Soldier. Be warned, it's from her POV, so it could get nasty. It'll also start with movie-encounter, because yeah. Fresh memory wipes are fun. Department of Backstory will be coming soon.

The targets were moving.

The Winter Soldier fixed her eyes on the car ahead of them. Her body was poised on the hood, and as soon as they were within range, she leapt. 

Sitwell was the primary target.

She wrenched him from the car, hurling him aside. A rag doll, she thought, would have weighed more. An odd thought. They came on her sometimes

She put it aside and pressed her gun to the roof of the car below, firing four shots. She much preferred a clean shot without obstacles, but sometimes, expediency was required.

If she hit them, she did not know, but the brakes slammed and she was tossed from the roof.

Falling was familiar to her.

She rolled like a cat, catching the road with her metal hand, and dragged herself to a halt. The car was still, and she could see the faces of the passengers. Three of them. Alive. Unhurt. Unfortunate. 

Her team rammed their vehicle into the car from behind. Clumsy work. Sloppy. Amateurs. Men who favoured violence over a clean kill. If they had stopped, as she ordered, three shots through the windscreen would have brought an end to the affair.

She leapt as the car careened towards her, bracing her hands on the hood and flipping up. One hand curled around the edge of the hood. The other went to the revolver at her back, drawing it. The woman in the car shouted something. Red hair. Familiar bone structure. A child?

The blond man grabbed the wheel, twisting and the car spun.

The Winter Soldier was flung, rebounding off the barrier. She rolled onto her knees, and raised her gun. One shot for one tyre. One shot for another. Simple. Clean.

The targets were trapped as their car skidded out of control, flipping end over end. 

She rose, prowling after them. Her flesh was bleeding, but it could be repaired in due course. She flexed her fingers around the grip of her gun, aware of shouts around her, panic. People were like sheep. They bleated incessantly at any threat, even if it was not directed at them.

The targets, however, were still moving, and they were not sheep.

The fair man was dragging the dark man from the car, and the red-haired woman turned, looked towards the Winter Soldier. Through her smoked lenses, the Winter Soldier could see recognition, and fear. 

A grenade flew past her head.

Her team, of course.

The fair man grabbed up a disk of metal, one she remembered from three nights earlier. A shield? An archaic weapon against a grenade. He dived forward, towards the grenade, and the concussion lifted him and the shield into the air, sending him hurtling from the bridge.

The Winter Soldier could recall a thousand men and a thousand grenades. 

Very few would run towards them.

She frowned, turning her focus to the other two. The red-haired woman was crouched over the dark man, both of them half-obscured by the blazing car. The gunfire of her team was focussed on them, which left the fair man.

A level six operative.

Someone capable of surviving a fall. 

Anyone could survive a fall, if they knew how to land. 

She ran, vaulting over the edge of the bridge and dropping. There was a bus below, and she landed, rolling along the rocking roof. The bus screamed to a halt, and she could see the target lying in front of it on the road, staggering to his feet.

She raised her gun, but something alerted him.

Someone.

A voice crying a name.

Steve.

He looked up, and before she could fire, he saw her, and hurled the shield. The impact caught her in the middle, knocking her back off the bus. She twisted in the air, using the shield to catch her weight as she fell, coming up into a crouch behind it, her gun raised.

The fair man was clever.

He didn’t emerge from behind the bus, not until gunfire from above made him move, by which time, she was already moving towards him. He was strong and he was fast, and her gun was sent spinning from her hand. 

A blade from her waist served well enough, and she twisted and brought him down onto his back, flipping him over her shoulder. He used her momentum, flipping her hard. She barely had a moment to catch herself, a handspring bringing her back to her feet.

They circled one another, watching for an opening, then she lunged, feinting to the left and bringing her knife in with her right, while her left - a weapon even when it was empty - thrust into his ribs. He was hurled up, and crashed down on the roof of a nearby car, metal and glass splintering.

Once more, he jumped up, dodging her follow-up blow that crumpled the metal.

A true soldier, then. 

She stalked after him, drawing another pistol from her hip. Not good for close range fighting, but it was taking too long, and she could not expect her team to finish efficiently. She raised it to fire, and the shield was in the way again, turning away the bullets one by one. 

A thought crept upon her.

Yes. I think it works.

Strange.

She ran towards him, firing as she went, and brought her fist down hard. 

Nothing could withstand a blow from it. 

Nothing save the shield.

The vibrations shuddered through the length of her arm, and the surprise gave him an opening. Her gun was twisted out of her grip by a hand much stronger than an average human, and her arm was pulled up behind her back. She launched herself back, overbalancing him and sending him back into the ruined car, somersaulting back over the length of his body, and wrapping her flesh arm tight around his neck.

He didn’t go for her arm. 

Instead, he grabbed her head, knocking aside her visor and mask, his fingers scrabbling at her eyes. Weaknesses. He knew to aim for weak spots. She arched her neck back, then realised her mistake as his fingers caught that instead, and she was pulled over his head, her grip torn from his throat, and slammed her down hard on her back.

She was winded, but only for a second.

Any other man would have snatched up her gun or his shield and brought it down on her head, ended the battle.

He seemed wary of striking her. Traditional. Gentlemanly.

She rolled back onto her fingertips and toes, looking up at him, breathing hard.

He was half-crouched too, reaching for his shield, but he met her eyes, and then he did something no one had done. He stopped. He did not attack. He did not pick up his weapon. He simply froze, staring at her, as if she was a ghost.

“Peggy?”

A name? A code? She didn’t know.

“What’s a peggy?” she asked, panting.

She didn’t know why she spoke to him.

She didn’t know why she wanted to know.

He left his shield on the ground and started to rise, but she was on him before he could attack her.

If he had been unwilling to strike her before, he was even more so now.

He grabbed her arms, his hands broad and strong, and enough to stop her in her tracks.

“Peggy, it’s me. It’s Steve.”

She looked up at him. He was fair and blue eyed and earnest, and he believed speaking to her would save him.

She smiled her sweet smile reserved for the sentimental men who liked docile women, and lifted her hand to touch his cheek, then brought her knee up hard between his legs. He folded to his knees at her feet and she pressed her gun to the nape of his neck.

A rattle of gunfire raked across the ground behind her, a bullet tearing through her right shoulder. The gun slipped, dropped, and the primary directive echoed through her mind: if you are compromised, retreat to safe distance. Do not allow yourself to be captured.

The man at her feet looked up, and she knew he would say that word again.

She struck him with her left, knocking him senseless, then ran.


	2. Unfamiliar

The word was echoing in her mind, twinned with the fair soldier’s face.

Peggy.

He said it like a name.

He spoke to her as if she had a name.

She had no name that she could recall. She did not need a name, anymore than she needed a home or comfort or infants. She saw women, when she was on her missions, women who were soft, smiling creatures, followed by their children. It seemed senseless, a waste of the stronger sex, to sacrifice all for the sake of creating more.

She curled her fingers against her thighs, as they stitched the wound left by the gunshot.

There was pain, but she was accustomed to pain now.

She closed her eyes, and the fair man’s face was there once more.

He was reaching out to her, and she was falling?

The pain in her shoulder reminded her of other pain, her arm. She could not recall how she had lost the flesh limb, but she remembered waking, her hand gleaming. She remembered learning to use it. She remembered her breath misting as the walls turned cold around her and the air froze.

A crash of implements made her jerk her eyes open.

The doctor was on the floor and men were all around her with guns, pointed at her. 

An impulse to harm those who harmed her. That was… unfamiliar. Her keepers provided for her and sometimes, they hurt her, but it was for the cause. If they inflicted pain, it was because it was necessary to keep her focussed. A good weapon did not fire on its owner.

She rolled her shoulders back, and felt a fresh trickle of warm blood.

The doctor picked himself up off the floor, and resumed stitching.

The Winter Soldier stared at the wall.

Peggy.

It sounded like an echo she had heard once.

Peggy.

Peggy Carter?

Yes. Yes, that sounded right? Did it?

Was this what it was to have a memory? Was it something they had given her?

Her fingers bit into her thighs, and she tried to recall. Had she killed a Peggy Carter? Or met one? Perhaps before she was as she was? Or maybe it was a trick, put in place by the fair man and his colleagues. 

There were footsteps nearby, but she dismissed them.

This place was her handler’s. She had no need to fear here.

He spoke to her, but she could not listen. Her memories were… disjointed. Peggy. Peggy Carter. Agent? Peggy. Agent Peggy Carter? Perhaps that was right. Perhaps it was a record she had seen. Or an identity she had used.

A sharp blow snapped her head around.

“Mission report,” her handler said sharply. “Now.”

The Winter Soldier turned her head, looking at him. She did not ask questions. She did not need to. But now, she had them.

“The man with the shield,” she said. “He was familiar.”

Her handler drew up a chair, sitting before her. He knew her better than anyone, and he would ensure she was adequately informed before her missions. “You met him earlier this week, on another assignment.”

She shook her head slowly. The other assignment was the director. This was not the director. The man with the shield was there before, but he did not speak and he did not stop her. She didn’t know him then, but now, when he curled around a grenade and stood behind the shield, she knew him as readily as a human breathes air.

“I knew him,” she said with more certainty.

The handler sat back, watching her.

She was not meant to question him, she knew that. 

Yet, it seemed like folly to go on a mission without being fully aware of all the variables. A wise agent would not run in half-cocked. She could remember someone saying that, but she could barely remember the words, let alone their owner. 

“Your work has been a gift to mankind,” he said. “You shaped the century. I need you to do it one more time.”

The Winter Soldier slowly nodded. One more time, then she could sort through the fragments of images. Perhaps find who this Peggy was. “One more time,” she agreed. “And then, I will find her.”

“Her?”

She looked up at him. “Agent Peggy Carter.”

The handler did not say anything, but his skin tone changed to the colour of rancid milk. Shock, she knew. She had seen it many times before, but never when she was here. “Where did you hear that name?”

He knew the name.

Peggy Carter was a real person, then.

That was… useful.

“The man with the shield used it,” she replied. “Is she alive?”

The handler ran his hand over the bottom of his face. Nervous. He was nervous. He did not often show it so clearly, not to her. “She died a long time ago,” he said. “It’s possible that he might have known her.” He rose, too quickly, frightened. That was new. That was strange. He looked at the technicians. “Prep her.”

The tech whom she thought of as Bowtie looked uneasy. “She’s been out of cryo freeze too long.”

Three weeks, two days, seventeen hours of consciousness, much of it spent renewing her strength. A stored weapon was a wasted weapon. For days, she worked, and by night, she ached, and day by day, the world came into focus. She could see clearly now.

That was not the answer the handler wanted.

“Wipe her,” he said curtly. “Start over. We need her fresh.”

It was familiar.

Those words.

She opened her mouth for the bit. She let them steer her back in the chair. She took a long breath, and braced herself as the clamps locked in place. The metal closed around her like a mask, and she closed her eyes.

Peggy Carter.

Agent Peggy Carter.

They wanted to strip that name from her, but she knew that name, and even as the pain flared through her head like a blade, she repeated it over and over and over. Peggy Carter. Agent Peggy Carter. Agent Carter. The first person to make the handler uneasy. 

A threat. 

A danger. 

Agent. 

Peggy. 

Carter.


	3. Uncompromising

Her assignment was the man called Captain America or Steve Rogers.

They did not give her pictures of his face. 

She would know him. 

He would be the one who would try and stop their plans. 

He was to be stopped at all costs. A level six operative with the support of two others, a red-haired woman and a dark man. Perhaps more, but definitely not less. All three were expendable with maximum force.

The Winter Soldier bided her time, crouched in the shadowy eaves of her handler’s building.

It was their day, he told her as she armed herself. Today, they would change the world for the better.

She said nothing.

Her duty to her handler was silence, and she was obedient.

Her handler’s ships would rise within two hours, and she knew that until they were airborne and functioning correctly, she would watch and wait for this Captain America. A trite name, she thought. Only Americans would have the arrogance to name their so-called hero that.

A voice echoed on the speakers, and she uncurled from her post.

Steve Rogers. 

He was here, already, and he had slipped by her.

The Winter Soldier dropped lightly down from the eaves. If people stared, she didn’t care. Her target was in the area, and if her handler was correct, he would be aiming for the carriers. They were due to launch in two hours, but interference could prevent that.

She broke into a run, racing for the hangar bay.

The doors were already opening by the time she got there.

Launch had been brought forward.

That was good, but she could see their enemies were already work on the helicarriers that were rising.

She paused, taking account of the variables. The third carrier would rise soon, but it would be too late, so the only option would be to acquire one of the vessels from within the hangar. That would mean potential threats, willing to disable her.

The Winter Soldier drew the automatic from her back, and swung down into the bay.

SHIELD were said to be highly-trained operatives, but they walked into her attacks, blinded by patriotic fervour and zeal. 

Three smaller ships were smoking ruin on the deck when she finally slid into a cockpit, taking hold of the steering grid and pushing the pilot’s corpse to one side. His blood was on the dials, but it made no difference. She had no need for a gentle landing. Her only aim was to get on board the same ship as her primary target.

There was another operative in the air, carrying the one called Captain America up to the third helicarrier. 

They were in range, but something stayed her finger on the trigger of the guns.

A flicker of an image, the man far from her, falling away, distracted her enough that they vanished up behind the last helicarrier.

The Winter Soldier bared her teeth in fury.

Memories were weakness.

She had no need of them.

She forced any thoughts other than the mission aside and brought her craft up onto the carrier, landing and out of the shuttle before the engines even fell silent. 

Her target was there, set down by his compatriot with the robotic wings, and neither of them saw her coming. She took out the Captain in his blue uniform with a body-blow, that sent him tumbling out into the air.

His ally tried to leap after him, but she caught him by the wing. Like a boy with a butterfly, she tore his wings off with her bare hands and tossed him after his Captain.

It felt simple.

She stepped close to the edge of the deck and looked down.

It was a sheer drop, and something about the sight of distant water below, beneath a cloud-scudded sky, made her stomach twist. She did not fear heights, but falling from them was another matter.

He was still there.

The Captain in his suit of blue and white, dragging himself back onto the lower deck. 

He looked up at her, and for a moment, she saw him in another helmet, dark blue, his eyes shining, lips smiling. She drew back from the edge. It was no time for her mind to be playing tricks on her. He was a target, nothing more.

She stood on the deck for a moment, thinking. They had not tried to stop the other two carriers or taken the controls. That meant there was something within the carrier they had been aiming for, something that could prevent the carriers from functioning.

It struck her like a blow.

The targeting grid.

It was a weakness on the vessel. 

Alter that and the directive of the ship would be changed.

She was running even as the thought came to her, because she knew where her target would be, and she had no intention of letting him finish what he had begun.

The carrier was vast, but it seemed that they had given her the blueprints, leading her through narrow staircases, and down ladders, until she emerged on a metal bridge, the world whirling below. It was a long drop, and she didn’t want to look down.

The targeting grid was ahead and she set herself in front of it.

She did not need to find her target.

If she was correct, he would find her.

Behind her, the tracking grid was humming. 

The wind tossed strands of her hair loose from the tight braid, and she slowly flexed her hands by her sides, as footsteps approached. He descended a staircase, his boots rattling on the narrow metal bridge, and she raised her eyes to look at her target.

He was not in any attack stance. Half-hidden by the mask, his features were not discernable, but his body gave the impression of pain and grief.

“People are going to die, Peggy,” he said. 

Peggy.

The name felt like an echo in a chasm.

Peggy.

Something was familiar in that word. Something she could almost remember. Her fingers twitched by her sides. It was out of reach, this name, this Peggy.

He took a step forward and she tensed to defend the target grid. Even beneath the mask, she could see his eyes were bright and wet. “Please don’t make me do this.”

Make him?

Curious. 

From below there was the rattle of gunfire, and he charged at her. 

He carried a shield, shining and round, and he struck her a full body blow, the metal ringing close to her ear. It was almost enough to throw her from the canopy, but she rolled and caught the edge of the ledge, swinging her legs back around with full force, cutting his legs out from beneath him.

The impact should have winded him, but he was up in a split-second, jumping over her to reach the panels. 

She sprang up, using his braced calf to vault up onto his shoulders, bringing a garotte wire around under his chin. His hand moved lightning fast, catching it against his palm. He spun away from the grid, twisting the wire around his hand and dropped forward with enough force to flip her over his head.

The Winter Soldier landed hard on her back, the impact making her head ring, and she had to roll to avoid a blow to the head that would have incapacitated her. She came up in a crouch, gun in hand, and he was too close to avoid the first shot.

It tore through his upper arm, but before she could fire again, he kicked up the shield, catching it and slamming it into her face. She staggered, then dropped onto her haunches, and kicked out with both legs, destabilising him. Before he could recover, she wrapped both thighs around his calves and tipped herself backwards over the ledge.

He fell with her, both of them crashing down onto the lower canopy. 

Something slid from his fingers.

A memory disc.

She shot a look at him and saw his eyes flick to it.

That was their weapon. That would stop the carriers.

She dived for it, sliding down the canopy on her front, almost dropping down into the belly of the glass dome. 

The memory slide was cool against her fingers, but before she could pick it up, he kicked her, hard enough to flip her over the edge. She scrabbled for purchase, for the disc and the ledge, but she was falling, backwards, and above him, he was standing, staring. 

Another flicker.

Another time.

Another place.

A train. A gorge. Cliffs on all sides.

And him, this Captain America, without his mask, reaching out, shouting.

The impact with the dome stole her breath, but she heard the rattle of the disc on the glass nearby. Her ribs were broken, at least two, but she could still move. She rolled onto her side, scanning the surface. A shadow moved above her, and she saw him jump too.

The disc lay a dozen paces away, and she scrambled to her feet, half-running, half-crawling to snatch it up. He was on her in a heartbeat, tackling her across the glass. She shoved her metal hand up under his face, letting the charged fingertips scorch and sear at his face. She heard him cry out in pain, and for some reason, it brought to mind a bright, brilliant light.

In the split-second of distraction, he caught her left arm, twisting it down, pinning it with his thigh. His arm wrapped around her throat, held in place, tight. She hissed.

Too many flashes of thought.

Too much distraction.

She closed her right hand on the memory blade, squeezing.

“Drop it!” he panted against her ear. Her vision was clouding, and his other arm was twisting at hers, trying to get the blade. She tightened her grip, then cried out in pain when he jerked his arm. Elbow. Dislocated. The pain was blinding, and her vision was fading.

Perhaps she lost consciousness for a moment.

She could not be certain, but when her vision cleared, he was running from her, and she was free and the blade was gone. She caught her right arm with her left, snapping the joint back into place, and looked around.

Her world swam and her throat was aching.

There.

Climbing.

He would reach the grid soon.

He was her target. He was going to disrupt their plans.

The gun was in her hand without conscious thought, metal gleaming in metal, and she raised it. It was trembling, and her vision was still not in focus, but she aimed. 

The first shot caught the back of his thigh.

He staggered, but kept climbing.

She stabilised her left arm with the trembling hand of her right.

The next shot went through his shoulder, and he almost lost his grip, but not quite.

Inefficient. 

Her trainers would not have allowed her in the field.

She fell to one knee, and braced her arm on the other. The last chance for a clean shot before the canopy got in the way. Something exploded far below, and she took a long, slow breath, and fired.

The shot struck him square in the back and he fell.

Assignment complete.

She sank back on her haunches, cradling right arm with left. 

Assignment complete, and yet, it did not feel… right.

That was an unfamiliar sensation.

She felt light-headed and drew long breaths to regulate the oxygen in her blood. It would not do to be compromised. Her handler had not given her any more orders, beyond finding and stopping her target, but she was not meant to be compromised.

An explosion from below made her shudder.

Some impulse told her that she should leave the carrier, but she was commanded to terminate her target, then await new orders. She looked down through the glass at the other carriers, then frowned.

The guns were turning up, towards them.

The world exploded in flames around her.


	4. Unacceptable

She was trapped, and all she was aware of was the pain.

Parts of the carriers support struts had collapsed. A massive length of metal had pinned her to the dome, wedged across her torso. She lacked the strength to lift it with a damaged flesh arm and a left arm made unsteady by tremors.

Her mouth tasted of metal, and she struggled for purchase, trying to raise the beam.

Above her, there was movement, and she groped helplessly for a gun just out of reach.

Her target was standing on the canopy high above, looking down at her.

All he had to do was stand there, and she would be terminated, and her body would be prisoner by proxy, used by their enemies to create others like her. Unacceptable. Physical loss was tolerable, but to be captive after her death was not.

Pain tore through her right arm and she tried to use both to raise the beam again, her palms skittering on the metal. 

Below her, the world was ablaze.

If they were fortunate, her body would be destroyed by the flames.

A clatter forced her to remember she was not alone. 

She had failed, and her target had climbed down from the canopy. She could see blood on his uniform, the spreading stain at his belly. Not a clean shot. Stomach wound. Slow. Painful. Internal bleeding. Eventually terminal.

She looked up at him, and for a moment, was afraid.

She had no data on whether he would be vengeful.

She had no data.

Her hands trembled against the beam.

Death did not frighten her, but an unquantifiable assailant had her at his mercy.

He limped closer.

The second shot in the back of the leg, she recalled. The third in his shoulder.

And yet, when he wrapped both hands under the beam, and pulled, he did not even seem to notice them. The weight lifted from her ribs, and she could breathe, and claw herself free, keening under her breath as pain burned through her arm. He fell to his knees, panting.

Mercy.

He was showing her mercy.

He, who had no cause, and who knew her purpose.

She curled away from him, gathering her strength.

“You know me,” he whispered. “Peggy, you know me.”

Peggy. 

That name again.

That sensation right on the edge of memory.

She wanted to reach out and touch it, but there was nothing there, only a void.

“No!” She had to finish the mission. She swung out with her left, knocking him reeling, but she couldn’t rise and stumbled down to her knees.

He pushed himself upright against one of the struts. “We were allies,” he said, his voice breaking. There was blood at his mouth. Possibly a punctured lung. “Your name is Peggy.” He blocked another blow, knocking her hand aside, and she folded down on the glass beside him. “Agent Peggy Carter.”

Peggy.

Peggy Carter.

Agent Peggy Carter.

What the hell am I supposed to do with you, Agent Carter? This is a war, not a goddamned tea party.

The Winter Soldier recoiled, recalling a voice, a man, older. Not like the handler. One who did not want Agent Carter. One who did not need her. She was needed. She had an assignment. She had a target.

She struck him again, a backhand, and the blood spilled from his lips like jewels.

“Be quiet,” she hissed. “No more.”

He rolled out of range of her arm, onto his hands and knees on the glass, and looked up at her. “I’m not going to fight you, Peggy,” he panted, blood spattering the metal below him. He lifted one hand, shaking, and pulled off his helmet. His face was burned where she had touched him, four parallel marks on one cheek, one on the other. He looked at her them, fair and earnest and dying. “We were meant to go dancing, you and I.”

When this is all over, I might even go dancing.

It was as if her vision had flickered between the present an another time, and he wasn’t bleeding. He was in uniform, and smiling, and she remembered a strange series of emotions, and a warmth that felt like it belonged to someone else.

It did belong to someone else.

Sentimentality. 

Weakness.

She gathered what little strength she had left and threw herself at him, tumbling him onto his back and pinning him there, her left hand at his throat. “I was sent to kill you, not to dance with you,” she snarled, squeezing.

He didn’t struggle. He didn’t even fight.

“I was waiting,” he whispered.

What are you waiting for, she wanted to ask. What are you waiting for, Captain?

But she knew the answer, somewhere deep in her mind. 

The right partner.

She stared at him, at her fingers closed around his throat, and when the world shattered around them, this time, he was the one who slipped through her grasp.


	5. Unanswered

Protocol dictated that she return to the base.

Protocol dictated that she obey.

Protocol was for the Winter Soldier, who had no memories or life or connections aside from the next assignment. 

She did not return to the base.

Instead, she picked pockets as she wove through the crowd, keeping cash, casting aside cards that could be traced. She gathered enough for food, for clothing, and retreated to a safe location. There were buildings scheduled for demolition, but logic indicated all demolition crews would be processing the SHIELD building.

The building had been burning when she dragged the man - Captain America - Steve Rogers - Steve from the water. He was bleeding still, but he was breathing, and there were people all over the site. He would be found in time.

His body was capable of remarkable regeneration, she remembered. His cells were built to repair him.

She couldn’t recall who told her that.

In the shadows of the ruined building, she bound her ribs and her arm, and dressed herself to blend in. There was no synthetic sheath available for her arm, so she covered it with a long-sleeved shirt and a coat. 

Sometimes, a sheath was provided, when she was expected to play a delicate woman. 

On those occasions, they would put her in a dress that showed all her skin, and make her look beautiful. Men were often distracted from a threat because it looked pretty. She would kiss them and earn their favour, and when they thought she was innocent and safe, she would snap their necks.

That angered her now.

They made her a toy, a pretty doll, to draw men in. They depended on her appearance to get what they wanted, and that twisted in her belly like a knife.

She was so much more than that.

One day, she would find the ones who made her so.

Her new clothing was subdued and modest, with buttons up to the neck. It felt better, more suitable for the image she wished to present. She walked in the street and people neither stopped nor stared, which was her intent.

For several days, she kept to the shadows, eating her meagre rations, and gathering data from her radio and the scattered newspapers in the street. SHIELD was no more, but her handler - name: Alexander Pierce - had been killed too. It neither cheered nor saddened her. She had hoped he would give answers, but now, those answers were silenced.

When no one came hunting for her, she went out into the world again.

She found a shop where they cut and changed her hair, short, dark red. She acquired a pair of spectacles. She smiled as if she was witless and walked as if she was at ease, and approached an exhibit that she had seen advertised in newspapers and on the sides of buses.

Captain America.

There was no one who would give her answers, so it was time for her to seek them herself.

Her left hand was bandaged, in a makeshift sling, and when they scanned her at the security desk, she fabricated a laughing lie. A pin in the joint. A break. It was such a silly accident. How embarrassing that it triggered all the alarms.

They waved her through, unaware that it was as dangerous a weapon as any of the guns they were scanning for.

The exhibit opened in a show of patriotism. Vast posters covered the walls, the man she had fought and nearly killed. She knew nothing of him but his name and his strength, but it seemed he was admired. 

A screen before her glowed to life.

The Winter Soldier stopped short, her heart beating erratically.

The man on the screen was clearly Captain America, but he was small, slighter than her. She approached the screen, staring at it. At him. Yes. That was right. 

She could visualise him in the uniform, burdened down by the weight of it, but holding a ragged scrap of a flag. And smiling. She could see him smiling.

The image changed, expanding upwards to the man she had fought, broad and fair, and without conscious thought, her right hand moved to touch his chest. It should have been warm, firm, but the screen was cool and she drew her hand back. 

It all felt familiar.

She moved away from the screen, turning her back as the small soldier appeared again. It made her heartbeat quicken, but she couldn’t say why.

Instead, she read of Captain America and the Howling Commandoes. She read of the men captured by the Red Skull. She watched a screening of a man called James Barnes, only ten years earlier. He was thin and drawn, talking about the Captain. His words were slow, slurred, and his hands trembled. Unwell. Intoxicated.

When she emerged into the final room, there was a mural on the wall.

A portrait of a woman’s face.

Her face.

The Winter Soldier lifted her hand to remove the spectacles, looking up at the woman on the wall. There were words: In Memorium. 

The woman was Agent Margaret Carter, called Peggy by her friends. 

Her mouth felt dry as she read about the woman who had been a leader of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. The one loss of Captain America’s squad, when she fell to her death on a mission in the Alps.

The memories of falling, of Steve above her, reaching out, of mountains.

It made her breath come too quickly, and she had to sit down on the bench nearby, her legs trembling beneath her. 

“Hey.” A small child approached her. “She looks kind of like Agent Peggy.”

The Winter Soldier looked up, at the child, then at it’s parent.

“Don’t be silly, sweetie,” the mother said. “Agent Peggy died a long time ago.”

The Winter Soldier felt unbalanced. 

Peggy Carter was real. 

Peggy Carter’s memories were in her mind. 

Peggy Carter died a long time ago, and yet, she was alive.

She rose and walked from the exhibit hall as fast she could. By the time she reached the escalator, she was running, and by the time she was out in the street, she was running as fast as she could.

Was it possible?

She didn’t know.

Steve Rogers was alive and young, when he should have been old. 

In the video, the man called James Barnes appeared to be in his forties when he should have been at least eighty. He might have been a relative of the Howling Commando named Bucky, but his tone and the information he provided all indicated first-hand experience.

Perhaps there was something they were given, supplements like her own, to maintain them.

She didn’t know where she was running to until she was standing outside the front doors: the main hospital, where she knew Captain America was recovering from his injuries. She had found that information easily enough, but she could not understand why she had come.

The halls were busy, as hospitals always were, but no one questioned a girl with a sling, not even when she slipped into the staff rooms.

When she emerged, she looked like any other doctor, stolen stethoscope and white coat giving support to the lie. She snatched up a clipboard as she passed a nurses station and walked as if she was the voice of authority. No one questioned her, or even glanced at her pass, as she made her way up the stairs and through the halls.

It was not difficult to identify the room occupied by Captain America.

Armed men guarded the doors.

She glanced through the glass.

The winged soldier was there. He was as tenacious as the Captain. She had met him twice in combat, but he had not seen her face, not closely enough to recognise her.

She straightened her back, put on her spectacles, and walked into the room.

The man looked up, then sat up a little straighter. “Doctor.”

The Winter Soldier hesitated. Captain America may have mentioned Peggy Carter to this man, which meant that her natural accent was not suitable. She chose, instead, a modulated Russian accent with enough American accents to divert him. “If you do not mind, I need to check on Mr Rogers.”

The man looked at her, dark eyes narrowing a little. “You’re not his usual doctor.”

Instinct said to disable to the man before he could compromise her, but this man was a friend to the Captain. He was not to be harmed.

She thought urgently of the sign on the door. “Doctor Hu is engaged,” she lied smoothly. “If you will excuse me?”

He watched her for a moment, then got up. “I’ll be right outside, if he wakes up.”

The Winter Soldier ignored him and drew the shutters down as he left the room. Only then did she look at the man on the bed.

Captain America was pale, and the burns she had inflicted on his face stood in dark relief against his skin. There were lines connecting him to machines, intravenous drips, fluids. He was being well looked after.

He had not died.

It was a… relief?

Perhaps that was the sensation.

She approached the bed, and cautiously put out her hand, and touched his chest. His heart was beating steadily beneath her palm, and his flesh was as warm and firm as she had anticipated at the exhibit. She spread her fingers, and felt the heartbeat quicken.

His hand moved, sluggishly, and she watched as it closed over her own.

The man’s eyes flickered open.

Her own heart was racing and she pulled her hand back. Coming to this place was a grave miscalculation.

“Peggy?” he whispered.

She ran, again.

She was a failed operative, a broken weapon, and she ran. She heard people shouting behind her. She heard people giving chase, but this was her life, and she knew it well. She was back in the streets and back in the shadows before anyone could lay a hand on her.


	6. Unexpected

The Winter Soldier seldom needed to sleep before.

Cryo-stasis and supplements meant she was rested when it was practical, but awake and conscious for active assignments. 

Without either, she was experiencing dreams for the first time.

Or perhaps the first time she could recall.

They were images, filling her mind when she should have rested. Her body was exhausted, but her mind would not allow her to rest. People and places she could not identify bombarded her, and she woke up shaking on the ground that was her bed. 

Many of them left her with her heart racing against her chest.

He was in many of them.

The man who was her target.

Captain America.

No.

No, that was the uniform. The identity by which he concealed himself.

She remembered him differently in dreams, slight and small and shy.

Steve.

His name was Steve.

It was not practical nor sensible to approach the hospital again. He was recovering, but had still not emerged. It was better that he rested there. She was not ready to see him again, to see him look at her, as if she was someone they both remembered. 

Maybe she was Peggy Carter once, but she was not that person anymore. 

She changed her hair colour once more, this time to black to mask the red dye. She would not be recognised with darker hair, not by the second soldier. Perhaps by the red-haired woman from the car.

The Winter Soldier could not remember who the young woman was, but her face appeared in dreams. The woman was younger then, wide-eyed. She looked to the Winter Soldier with something akin to fear and respect.

A trainee, perhaps.

She watched from the sidelines as the red-haired woman was taken before the courts. Hidden by a baseball cap, toying with a stolen cellphone, she watched the reporters gather before the woman, who smiled like a pretty little toy, but could kill like a soldier. 

Natasha Romanoff.

That was incorrect.

The data was invalid.

She watched her for some days, trying to place her. It felt safer than accessing digital intel, but after several days of surveillance, and increasingly cryptic dreams, she was no closer to the truth. 

The only option was to use a neutral point for data: cafes, where computers with databases were available. It was not difficult to find accurate information anymore. SHIELD was compromised, and all data was available. 

The Winter Soldier was unused to new technology, but she learned quickly to connect to something called the internet.

She had to retreat to her hiding place once she learned of the existence of Natalia Alianovna Romanova.

A child turned into a weapon.

Nightmares came that night, bloody and violent. Lessons, she remembered, when she woke, shivering and soaked in sweat. The child had to learn that a man was weak. The child had to learn to make men see what they wanted to see.

She was still lying on the cold, hard ground, when a shadow moved above her.

The Winter Soldier was on her feet in a heartbeat, her limbs stiff and aching with cold. 

“At ease. I’m unarmed.” The voice was familiar, the Russian fluent, without American accent.

The Winter Soldier kept one eye on the silhouette, standing on the staircase above her. The woman had breached her defences. A sign she was truly exhausted. “Natalia Alianovna.”

“You have been following me.”

“Yes.” There was no point in denying fact.

“Why?”

The Winter Soldier slowly flexed her fingers. “To know who you were.”

The woman descended the staircase, walking smoothly, cat-like. A familiar tread. “You know who I am. Who I was. Natalia Alianovna.”

“I taught you?”

The woman stopped in front of her. Taller than she had been. Confident. But not without fear. It was in her stance and her eyes. The little child did not forget her lessons. Nor did she forget her teacher. “You don’t remember?”

The Winter Soldier said nothing.

The woman watched her in the half-light of a street lamp that shone through a broken window. 

“Captain Rogers is recovering,” she said, slipping her hands into the pockets of her jacket. 

The Winter Soldier watched her guardedly. She was showing a weakness by concealing her hands, leaving herself vulnerable. It would be so easy to snap her neck with one twist of the hand. Stay hidden, unseen and unknown.

A test, then, to measure her intent.

The Winter Soldier curled her fingers against her palms. “I have no further interest in him.”

Natalia Alianovna’s eyebrows rose. “We both know that’s not true,” she said. 

The Winter Soldier straightened up from her defensive crouch. Trust for trust. Measure for measure. “He believes I am someone I am not.”

“I know.” Natalia Alianovna leaned against the wall. “Agent Carter. Lost in action in 45.” One side of her mouth turned up. “You look spry for your age.”

The Winter Soldier kept to the shadows. “Why did you find me?”

“Security.” The woman took a step towards her. “You came after Rogers before. If you try to do the same again, we have powerful friends who will stop at nothing to destroy you.”

The Winter Soldier gazed at her. “You think that threat will frighten me, Natalia Alianovna?” she asked quietly. She could remember fragments of many identities, but only one felt real: Agent Peggy Carter, the woman the Captain believed her to be. That was a person any woman would feel proud to be, but all that was left of her were shards, sharp and painful. “What more could your friends do that hasn’t already been done?”

Natalia Alianovna was watching her, a strange light in her eyes. “Would you hurt him?”

“I am the one who put him where he is.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“I know.”

Natalia Alianovna was silent for a moment. 

When she spoke, it was carefully. “We can confirm if you are who Rogers thinks.”

The Winter Soldier flexed her fingers slowly. “Why?”

“I know what it’s like, not to know,” Natalia Alianovna said slowly.

The Winter Soldier knew why. She could not remember details, but she remembered the child crying, then silent. She remembered glimpses of the girl’s face, features hardening. There was blood and there was pain, and the child became a weapon. “And knowledge helps?”

Natalia Alianovna lifted one shoulder, a very American gesture. “It puts pieces back where they should be,” she said. “Maybe not all the pieces, but some of them.” She withdrew her hands from her pockets. The Winter Soldier recoiled, but Natalia Alianovna simply held out a cellphone. “If you want our help. No tracker. Just a cell with unlimited credit if you need it.”

The Winter Soldier stared at it, then at her. “I would have killed you.”

“The Winter Soldier would have,” Natalia Alianovna replied. “The Winter Soldier would have killed witnesses at the hospital. At the exhibit. The Winter Soldier would have killed me when they saw me, not spoken to me as an equal.” She extended her hand and the phone. “You’re not what they made you into anymore.”

The Winter Soldier lifted her left hand, looking at it. “And what am I, if I am not that?”

Natalia Alianovna’s mouth tilted into a cautious smile. “Well, that’s up to you.”


	7. Uncooperative

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains scenes of somewhat graphic and bloody violence.

The cell rested against her thigh like an unexploded grenade.

The Winter Soldier was not ready to approach them.

Their agency was compromised. They had enemies. They were vulnerable. It was tactically unsound to ally one’s self with a party who was not on stable footing, even if it would be beneficial to one’s self in the short term.

Instead, she turned her focus on the ones who had created her.

It was not difficult to find arms. Anything could be a weapon in the correct hands.

She returned to the base, unsurprised to find it empty. The chair that had been used to educate her stood there. Her hands twitched by her sides, recalling pain coursing through body and mind. How many times had she occupied the chair? How many times that she could not recall?

She walked forward and brought her left arm down in a sharp blow that shattered the casing. Another blow smashed the headpiece into shards. A third snapped the support. The fourth folded the back in half. The fifth, the sixth, the seventh…

She was panting and shaking and wet with sweat when she staggered back.

A needless gesture, fuelled by emotion. Foolish. Sentimental.

She stared down at the ruin, then gave it a bloody good kick for good measure.

There was little enough information to be found there. The computers were gone, and all the monitors and data, but she could recollect Bowtie. He had a security pass. They all did, but Bowtie was the one who interested her. He programmed her. He knew what was done. He was also weak and afraid, and that was useful.

She curled and uncurled her fingers slowly, and breathed deep.

She was programmed with skills to deal with specific targets. The details were important. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the name on the pass, whether it was his real name or not. The data was corrupted by the last time she had occupied the chair, but it was there. Available. Backed up.

Laurence Miller.

Doctor.

An ironic title.

She opened her eyes, gazing around the wreckage. There was nothing of use, no intelligence she could collate. All that remained was the chair, and if that fell into the hands of someone with an interest in such things, it could be rebuilt.

As she walked out the door, she tossed a grenade over her shoulder.

The blast warmed her back, and for a moment, she smiled.

It took her three days to find Bowtie.

He was in another city, and still using the same name. It suggested that he was off-records for her handler, or perhaps listed under an alias. His security clearance, however, showed his true identity. 

His house nestled in a tree-lined suburb, flanked by a garage and framed by a garden bright with colour. 

She walked the street by daylight in a floral dress and woollen coat, an umbrella held above her to keep off the rain. No one even looked sideways at her. A safe neighbourhood, where nothing unfortunate happened, and no women were harnessed to chairs for re-education.

By twilight, it was lovely.

By nightfall, it was peaceful.

Miller unlocked the door of the house, entering with a brown paper bag in his arms.

She leaned back slightly in the heavy leather chair. It creaked, and he turned.

She had framed herself appropriately. The light from the street lamp cut through the window, and fell on the metal of her false arm and the gun resting beneath her fingers. 

In the darkness, his face went ashen The bag fell from his grip. A bottle smashed, and the contents spilled down the step. Wine. Red. A moderately good vintage from the aroma.

“Doctor.”

He fumbled at his belt. Armed, but unaccustomed to the necessity. Unlike her. She raised the gun smoothly, targeting the centre of his forehead. 

“Raise your hands.”

He obeyed, and she was almost disappointed. 

One of the primary directives was to evade capture. If you were not caught, you could not be utilised by the enemy. They could not take you apart to find what they needed. 

He knew that. He made sure she knew that. But he did not obey his own directives. He was not a weapon. He was a batman, keeping things clean and tidy and orderly for those in command, polishing their guns and lining up their bullets.

The Winter Soldier rose from the chair and motioned him towards the dining table. 

“Sit. Hands on the table.”

He stumbled down the steps, trembling. That, she had seen a thousand times, in enemy and ally. She watched him impassively, waiting until he sat in the chair and splayed his fingers on the tabletop. She wrapped a strip of garrotting wire around his torso, too long to be practical in the field, but efficient to pinion a man.

She could smell urine.

Pitiful.

She kicked out one of the other chairs and sat down facing him, but said nothing.

Silence could intimidate much more than threats. 

Sweat was rolling down his face, soaking into his collar, and he was weeping.

“What do you want? Why are you here?” he pleaded. “Why?” Question after question, and she only watched and waited for him to begin to answer them himself. “I didn’t have a choice! You know that! I was obeying orders! I had to obey orders!”

She tilted her head slowly to one side. Cat-like, she thought. A predator watching prey.

“Y-you need your supplements? To help you rest? I can get them for you! I can help you if you need help.”

He babbled on and on, sometimes pleading, sometimes cajoling, always desperate.

So many words.

It struck her that people were very good at wasting valuable air.

“How many times?” she finally asked.

He flinched back in the chair. “I-I don’t understand.”

“You do.” 

She rose, drawing a second gun, a different manner of gun from her belt. 

He looked from it to her face and back, bewildered.

Her hand moved lightning fast and the nail punched through the back of his left hand, straight into the wood of the table. He went white, then grey, and when he opened his mouth to scream, she was behind him, her arm wrapped around his mouth.

“That is pain, doctor,” she hissed close to his ear. “Please grow accustomed to it. We have all night.”

His other hand moved, reaching for his belt, and she sighed, dropping her own gun to snare his wrist. It joined its twin on the table. The sound of metal tearing flesh had never felt more comforting. 

He was beyond screaming, gasping for breath and keening, his whole body convulsing in the chair. Shock, she supposed. She could not recall experiencing it. 

She left him where he was and took his gun from his belt. Sitting down opposite him, she removed the cartridge and disassembled the weapon with one hand. The dark spread of blood on the table curled around the metal.

When Miller’s shudders and whimpers trailed off into pathetic little sobs, she deigned to look at him again. 

“I asked you a question, doctor,” she said quietly. “I would appreciate an answer.”

He looked up at her, eyes and nose streaming, his body shaking in the chair. “I-I-I don’t know.”

“Explain.”

“I-I was only with the programme for thirteen years!” he stammered. “I-I-I programmed the… you… it was only four times… maybe five…”

Five times. 

Five times that she knew nothing about. 

Five separate assignments that would have left more blood on her hands.

She sat back in the chair, gazing at him.

He was crying like a child, whimpering. “Please… let me go… please don’t kill me…”

She reached into her pocket and withdrew a small recording device. She set it on the table, avoiding the pool of blood. “You will tell me about Project Winter Soldier,” she said quietly, “and I may let you live.”

He cringed. “You’ll kill me.”

She smiled at him. He was the first man to so openly fear her in many years. “Oh, I won’t kill you,” she said. “I can promise you that.” She leaned forward, holding his eyes. He was too afraid to recoil. “But I am quite efficient at hurting people. I was programmed to be so.” Her smile hurt her cheeks, the expression unfamiliar. “I won’t kill you, but I certainly won’t let you die either.”

The nails through his hands were quite an effective caution, it seemed.

“Wh-what do you want to know?”

“Everything,” she replied, and pressed record.


	8. Uninvited

Miller was in the custody of the security forces.

The Winter Soldier did not wish to approach Natalia Alianovna and her associates for aid, but that did not mean she was not willing to provide them with information and sources. A single message went from her telephone to Natalia Alianovna’s number saved in the memory card - Miller’s address.

She had left him snivelling at the table in a pool of his own blood, and was scarcely a block away when she saw the imposing black cars roaring towards the house.

She kept the recording.

The Winter Soldier Project was her affair.

The remains of SHIELD had enough to deal with. They did not need to approach a deeper and darker Soviet conspiracy, dating back some seventy years. They did not need to hear what her records said or the numbers she had dispatched. 

He did not need to hear that.

Every night, she found a new shelter and listened to the words again, the names, the people killed. They were only the ones Miller could recall, and there were still many of them. Some were specific targets. Many more were collateral. 

She would sit in the darkness, arms wrapped around her knees, and listen, commending them all to memory, as she planned her next move.

It became a routine, for days, maybe weeks: wake, hunt other traces of those affiliated with the programme, process them, leave them bound - and often bleeding - with a calling card for Natalia Alianovna’s associates, then move on.

Sometimes it was only one in one city.

Sometimes there were several.

It hardly mattered. 

What mattered was that the job was done and the agents were dealt with.

She knew she could have taken bloody vengeance. 

Sometimes, she wondered about killing them, even just one. 

Death was not a stranger to her, but now, some little flicker of conscience was present, something she could not remember feeling before, something that made sure that she did the right thing. Perhaps not the sensible thing, or the thing that would satisfy the burning fury that fuelled her, but it was the right thing.

It was a warm day in summer when her bus arrived in Chicago. 

She had earphones in, listening to a technician called Brovski begging for his mother, between spurts of useful intelligence. Her collection of recordings had expanded, but there was nothing in any of the information to indicate how her programming could be undone. 

It was, they stated, permanent. 

There had been no intention to terminate her usage. 

She almost wanted to go back and snap each of their spines, leave them trapped in body they no longer controlled, and let them see how it felt.

It was only a thought, and she put it aside each time the impulse rose. 

They had turned her into a monster, but she would not stoop to their level and become like them out of anger.

Her destination was a quiet office, non-descript and out of the way, hidden in a large building. Hydra - her owners - seemed to appreciate hiding in plain sight. They often were buried deep in businesses, cancer spreading out from the inside.

She signed in at the reception all, using the name Margaret Carter. The loops of the letters flowed easily beneath her hand, as if she had signed the same name a thousand times before. She looked at it, then smiled at the guard as he handed her a pass.

“Looks like they’re busy today,” he said, waving towards the elevators. “You want to go to the fifteenth floor. Turn left out of the elevator, and it’s the office at the far end of the hall.”

She smiled sweetly, but cursed inwardly.

If they had guests, it would make it much more difficult to disable and disarm them.

Still, she had her pass, and there was no harm in seeing what she might have to process at a later date.

As soon as she opened the door, she knew something was wrong.

Her gun was in her hand and her small, lady-like purse was dropped to the floor.

It was quiet, and the reception room of the office was empty, but there was something in the air. A faint odour. It reminded her of the scent of battle and gunfire, and in an office building, it was as out of place as an elephant.

It wasn’t a trap.

No one knew she was coming this way.

Perhaps other forces, allied with Steve Rogers and his associates?

The intercom on the desk buzzed.

“Agent Carter.” The voice crackled and buzzed and was so familiar. “The people you’re looking for are a little tied up. Maybe you’d like to join us.”

It felt like ice slipping down her spine.

No one knew she was coming. No one knew where she’d been.

They couldn’t possibly know.

She approached the intercom and pressed the button. “I think you should join me,” she said. “It’s only polite.”

She had her gun raised when the door opened, and a man sauntered out into the room, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He looked like he was in his mid-forties, his hair short and grey, stubble on his chin, but she knew him, and knew that looks could be very deceptive. 

It was the man from the video in the exhibit hall, only now, he was not so thin and wasted. He looked healthier, stronger, but there was something in his stance that told her his swagger was all show. He was terrified.

He looked her up and down as he had once before. She remembered that. She remembered, but she had no time for him then. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Now, he looked apprehensive. 

“Agent Carter,” he said.

The words came to her lips unbidden. “Sergeant Barnes.”

His mouth turned in something like a smile, but his eyes showed nothing. “You remember?”

She hesitated. “Fragments.” She tightened her fingers on her upraised gun. “Why are you here?”

He tilted his head, watching her. “To find you,” he said. “We got your gifts. One of them mentioned this place. Security feeds picked you up at the bus depot in Washington, getting on the Chicago bus.” He shrugged. She could see his hands were clenched in his pockets. “I wanted to see if you would come here next.”

“So you wanted to thank me in person?” Her gun’s grip was bruising her hand.

That hollow-eyed look fixed on her face. There was something else there. A desperation bordering on hysteria. “I wanted to know it was true,” he said. “That it wasn’t just another trick. That you were alive.”

She lowered her gun. “Does it matter?”

He just stared at her. “Does it matter?” he echoed. 

Her gun slipped smoothly into the holster against her ribs beneath her jacket. “You came here to find me,” she said. “I came here to find them. Since you have found me, and I don’t need to leave them for your people, I believe our business is concluded.”

She turned and walked back towards the door.

He ran three steps, catching her by her false arm and jerking her around. 

Presumptuous. Demanding. Wilful. _Male_. 

It took every bit of her control not to lash and send him spinning across the ground. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t fear. It was instinct to defend herself, but not against any of Steve Rogers’ people, not in any of the ways she had been trained in the Red Room. 

She looked down at his hand, as if she could will it away. It was a mass of scar-tissue, marks of burns long healed, pale and shiny by the flickering electric light. He was still holding her. He wasn’t loosening his grip.

Her breath was coming quick, and she looked up at him. “Let go.”

He shook his head wildly. “You don’t just walk away! Not like this! Not after everything!”

“Step away, Sergeant,” she said through clenched teeth. “Now.”

His hand tightened on her arm, as if he had just realised he was holding her. She saw shock filter into his eyes. He looked down at her arm, then at the hand covered in a delicate lace glove. He pulled his hand back, recoiling, as if she had struck him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding up his hands. “God… Carter, I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t until she was in the elevator, breathing calmly again, that she took stock of his words.

Sorry?

What did he have to be sorry for?

He had not strapped her in a chair. He had not re-educated her. He was nothing to her, and yet, he was sorry.

She considered going back, then shook her head. If he was sorry for some slight, let him be. She had other things to concern her.

She picked up a bus ticket to Maryland the next morning.


	9. Untouchable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains mention of sexual assault and sexual violence, plus after-effects of mental conditioning

There was blood on her hands.

Her intention wasn’t to kill, because that was what they had used her for. Too many were already dead at her hands.

But there was blood on her hands once more.

It wasn’t an enemy. It wasn’t one of Hydra. It wasn’t even someone hunting her.

It was just a man.

A man who saw a weary woman taking refuge in an abandoned building.

She woke to a hand over her mouth and another pushing her skirt up.

It wouldn’t have been the first time a stranger violated her body. 

In the past, it was a method of getting close to her targets. Many of them wouldn’t be alone in a room without bodyguards, but few wanted an audience mid-coitus. When they were at their most vulnerable was when she would snap their neck.

Now, her body was her own, and no man would make use of it, whether to make her kill or to rape her. 

Her metal fingers speared through his throat and twisted, and he died as his blood soaked through her clothes. 

There was no reason for her to be trembling, as she pushed his body from her. There was no reason to feel shaken. She was stronger and he was dead, but her heart was racing, and she pushed her skirts back down with shaking hands.

It was a weakness, fear, but it also reminded her that she was human.

Sickeningly so.

She was covered in blood.

She had no other clothing to hand.

She had no access to water without stepping out onto the busy streets.

She was sitting in the dark beside a corpse, and she couldn’t think what she should do.

Something in her reached for the cellphone. Some part of her, the part that was always steadfast and sure, sent a message. The block. The number. I require assistance. Promptly, if you don’t mind. 

Back-up. 

Support. 

That was important.

The blood was drying hard on her skirts when she heard footsteps. Her hands were lying limp in her lap, her fingers dark.

She looked up.

Natalia Alianovna was standing there. She didn’t look surprised or shocked. She just stepped over the body and crouched down in front of the Winter Soldier.

“Is any of this yours?”

The Winter Soldier shook her head. There were some bruises on her thighs, but they were not significant. “His.”

“Good.” The younger woman held out her hand. “Come with me.”

The Winter Soldier looked at her hand blankly. “Where are you taking me?”

“Some place safe,” Natalia Alianovna replied.

The Winter Soldier nodded, and put her hand in the other woman’s. It was the first time she could recall anyone offering a hand in friendship. It was probably not the first time, but the woman’s hand was warm against hers, pulling her to her feet. It made her tremble.

The other woman slipped her jacket off - a long, warm black coat that covered her to her knees - and wrapped it around the Winter Soldier’s shoulders. “I have a car waiting. Keep your head down until we’re there.”

It felt simple to obey orders.

Decades of living by command had carved an indelible impression in her mind. An order was given. It was to be obeyed. She would obey it, because the rest of her mind felt blank and empty and she couldn’t say why.

The car took them to a hotel, and Natalia Alianovna led her silently through the halls.

It was elegant. Rich. Grand.

Not somewhere she would have chosen.

The other woman had a suite.

“You can use the bathroom,” she said. “I have some spare clothes as well. They’re probably around your size.”

The Winter Soldier silently stepped out of her shoes and padded into the bathroom. She had been living out of gymnasiums, public restrooms and YWCA facilities, keeping herself clean enough not to be noticed, but out of sight of civilised people. She hadn’t had a bathroom to use for as long as she could remember, not since that night in Miller’s house, when she washed the blood from her hands.

She shed her clothes, letting them fall in a heap at her feet and stepped into the shower, turning the water on. It was hot and she used the soap to scrub at her body, scrubbing until it was red and aching, and the blood was sluicing down her legs, down the drain.

She buried her face in her hands, rubbing at her cheeks. They were hot and wet too, but it wasn’t from the shower. It felt ridiculous, to break. She wasn’t meant to break, not when there was so much to be done. She couldn’t afford to break.

That didn’t stop her shoulders from shaking, or her breath from coming in sputtering gasping sobs as the water streamed over her face.

By the time she emerged from the shower, she was calmer.

She brushed the condensation from the mirror and stared at her reflection. She had not looked at herself in a mirror intentionally for weeks. It felt unnatural to look at a mirror and see the face of Agent Peggy Carter looking back at her, hollow-cheeked and haunted. 

Agent Peggy Carter was a strong woman.

The Winter Soldier didn’t know what she was.

She padded back out into the suite, leaving the towel draped over one of the chairs. There were clothes laid out on the table in folded piles, and she looked at them. Simple clothes. Practical clothes. Clothes for at least four different personas. There were also a selection of gloves, a surprising kindness.

Her host was sitting by the table, her booted feet propped up on the edge.

She could feel Natalia Alianovna watching her, studying her.

Without her clothing, without her weapons, she looked exposed, bare and raw and helpless.

That was what many men had mistakenly assumed.

Natalia Alianovna knew her better than that.

The Winter Soldier looked through the clothing again, and selected a modest white blouse and black trousers. Respectable. Something she might have worn in another lifetime.

Her host swung her feet down from the table as the Winter Soldier dressed.

“I ordered room service,” she said. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Thank you.” The courtesy sprang to her lips without conscious thought. She sat down on the other chair, folding her hands in her lap like a lady. Her ankles crossed themselves to one side, and she wondered where she had learned that, and when. 

Natalia Alianovna was gazing at her. “You’ve been busy.”

The Winter Soldier inclined her head. “I wanted to be of use.”

“I can tell.” She sat up a little straighter in the chair. “You don’t have to do it on your own, you know. People would want to help you.”

The Winter Soldier shook her head. “This is my battle,” she said. “I was never able to fight it before. Now, I can.”

Natalia Alianovna nodded. If anyone would understand, it was a woman who had been trained just as she was. 

They sat in silence until someone knocked at the door. The Winter Soldier was on her feet in a heartbeat, but her companion raised a hand, motioning for her to sit. Room service, she remembered belatedly. Sustenance. 

She subsided back onto the chair, pushing her fingers through her damp hair. It curled around her face.

The other woman returned with dishes of food on a cart. The smell made the Winter Soldier’s mouth water. It was rich food, warm, filling. She ate more than she had in days, swiping every drop of sauce and meat from the bowl with chunks of bread.

Natalia Alianovna ate nothing, but she drank tea from a porcelain tea service.

When the Winter Soldier was done with her food, she took a cup too. Just so, she thought, arranging her fingers delicately around the handle. A lady knew how to sit and how to take her tea.

“What are you going to do now?” Natalia Alianovna asked quietly.

The Winter Soldier looked into the teacup. Tiny fragments of leaves were swirling there. 

“Continue,” she replied.


	10. Understood

The Winter Soldier had support.

It felt strange. She wasn’t sure if she could trust Natalia Alianovna, but to have at least one contact was better than nothing. A good soldier could not be a good soldier without support.

Before they parted ways, Natalia Alianovna pressed a package into her hand. 

“In case you need it.”

“Why?” she asked.

Natalia Alianovna lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Someone we both know wants to know you’re safe,” she said. “This way, you can be.”

The Winter Soldier almost dropped the package in the nearest bin, but she was too curious about the contents.

She opened it in a café.

There were documents, identification for an Elizabeth Windsor. Her face was beneath the laminate sheet. There were cards and rolls of money. There were addresses of safe houses where she could go, if she needed to lie low.

There was also a sealed white envelope with one word written on the front in a curving hand: Peggy.

Steve Rogers.

It was all from Steve Rogers.

It made her eyes burn and she forced all of the items back into the package, crumpling the unopened envelope. She had done nothing to deserve his attention or his care. If anything, she’d done everything to make him turn away from her. 

Still, she carried the package with her for days, the weight of it in her bag a constant reminder of a man she had tried and failed to kill. She didn’t understand why he cared, or what she had done to earn it. She wasn’t certain she wanted to know either, to be aware of what had been taken from her.

Data, data, data.

It was information.

It was intelligence.

And yet, every time she looked at the package, she was afraid to open it for what it could tell her.

Finally, in Boston, when storms rushed in, she gave in. She used one of the credit cards to take a room in a hotel. It was a cheap place, low prices and low quality, but it was out of the way, and it was a roof over her head.

As the rain battered against the windows, she sat on the floor beside the bed, and broke the seal on the envelope. The letter was short, only one side of a sheet, but it was heartfelt.

_Dear Peggy,  
I don’t know if you’ll even read this. I hope you do. I just wanted you to know that we’re thinking of you, and that any time you want to come by, you’re welcome. You don’t have to be alone.   
We know about Project Winter Soldier. They told us and they probably told you too. You’re not what they made you into. You’re not just a weapon. You’re not a murderer, no matter what they made you do. You’re Peggy Carter, and you are so much better than anyone I have ever met.  
I don’t know if you remember, but if you ever want to know about how things were back then, if you ever want to ask, please just call me. You don’t need to see me. You don’t need to, but if you just want to call, just to ask anything, you know I’m here.  
Maybe we’ll see each other again.  
Steve._

The letter fell from her trembling fingers into her lap.

Her cheeks were wet.

She brushed her fingers along each cheek, wiping away the tears.

He’d written a number at the bottom of the letter, and she looked at it for a long time, before she took out her cell phone. 

She typed in the digits one by one, then pressed the dial button.

Her hand was shaking as she lifted the phone to her ear.

“Steve Rogers.”

The Winter Soldier closed her eyes. Fresh tears were hot on her cheeks, sliding down silently, and she pressed her hand to her mouth.

“Hello? Anyone there?”

Her breath hitched as she tried to stifle a sob.

“Peggy?” He whispered it like a prayer. “Peggy, is that you?”

She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t find any words. Not even to ask why he was helping her, what he wanted of her, what he expected.

She disconnected the call, and let the phone fall.

Her legs drew up to her chest, and she wrapped her arms around them tightly. It felt safe, compact. She pressed her closed eyes to her knees, shaking, silent.

The phone buzzed.

Not a call.

A message.

She picked it, but her hands felt clumsy and thick, and it took her three attempts to open the message.

The source number was his.

[How’s the weather?]

She stared at it blankly, rubbing at her cheek with her false hand. 

The weather? 

Why would he ask about a mundanity like that? 

There were so many other questions he could ask. 

And then she understood. The questions they would both ask were difficult and painful. Who he was to her. What she was to anyone. How he could look beyond the lists of people dead at her hand.

She hesitated, then typed in a response.

[Wet. Bloody rain.]

She didn’t set the telephone down, holding it tightly in her hand. It vibrated against her palm a moment later.

[But you always carry an umbrella?]

It was an echo. 

She knew those words. 

She pressed her eyes shut, trying to remember, trying to find some sign of where they came from. There was a room, lined with artefacts, trinkets, and there was Steve, but not as he was now. Steve as she knew him, small and uncertain.

Before, she remembered. Before the serum. Erskine. The laboratory.

The phone fell from her hand and she buried her face in her hands. 

She could remember the room, the machine. She could remember him closed up inside it, screaming in pain. Her fingers pressed against her face, ice cold on one side, warm and soft on the other, and she took a sharp breath.

The phone buzzed again.

She didn’t pick it up right away.

When she did, she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed that it was a new message from Natalia Alianovna with a new target and a new city in the Mid West. 

She flicked back to the message from the other number. 

For several minutes she just looked at it, then she added it to her contact list. There were many names she could have filed him under, but there was only one word that sprang to mind when she thought of him.

Captain.


	11. Unnoticed

She made stops in so many states that she lost count. Hydra had settled deep, influencing more than just SHIELD, and she wanted to be the red-hot blade that cauterised the wounds and stopped any other heads from emerging.

It was exhausting, but it was worth it, seeing the people who would have enslaved her for life being closed away in turn. Scientists, technicians, operatives, soldiers. It was sickening to see what crawled out when you flipped over a stone.

Some of them still believed she was a functioning Hydra agent, a fact she didn’t correct until she had viewed their facilities, assessed the status, and then blown every damned bit of it down to the ground. 

Sometimes, she even took a thermos of tea and sat and watched them burn.

Every step of the way, her cellphone was in her pocket, so close it was almost nestled into her flesh.

She hadn’t called again, and she knew Steve wouldn’t call her. He would wait until she was ready to make the call herself. He said it before: he was waiting. He would wait for her as long as it took.

She did, however, send messages to him from time to time.

They had fallen into an easy rhythm, which felt so natural that it made her nervous. 

She was sitting on a train east when his latest message came through.

[Nat says she liked the flowers. Should I pretend to be jealous?] 

Carter - she had taken to calling herself that, because she no longer felt like the Winter Soldier, but she was not ready to be Peggy again - smiled slightly. It was an expression she wasn’t accustomed to, but she found herself favouring it more often. He was usually responsible for it as well.

[She’s given me some lovely presents. I thought it was only fair to return the favour. Not quite a new gun, I know.]

He replied less than a minute later.

[Well, now I know the way to a lady’s heart. Just give her a big gun and she’s all yours.]

She chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully, then typed. 

[I don’t know, Captain. There’s something to be said for the occasional bouquet.]

She could picture him smiling, a small half-quirk of his lips.

[I’ll keep that in mind.]

She set the phone back in her lap and looked out of the window.

Some of her memories were becoming clearer with each day. She felt more stable, and the impulse to massacre the people who crossed her was diminishing little by little. There weren’t so many of them left to deal with now, at least not in the Hydra divisions in the US.

Soon, she would need to expand her search, but before then, she had questions she needed answers to. She didn’t want to ask Steve, not when they had struck up such a gentle rapport. He didn’t need to be the one to tell her what had happened to her all those years ago. She didn’t want to damage this new and fragile friendship.

That was why she was making her way to New York, to find a man who had found her months earlier.

It wasn’t difficult to find Barnes.

Natasha Romanoff - no more Natalia Alianovna than Carter was the Winter Soldier - had provided her with access to all kinds of databases, with securely encrypted access to ensure that no one but her could see who and what she was looking for.

He was listed as living in Brooklyn, as of 2012, but she had scanned through his records. 

She didn’t know what had happened to him after the war, but until 2012, he had spent time in and out of psychiatric institutions. 

According to the data, he’d been committed for a period of four years immediately after the war. There was a period of stability, then a series of relapses from the sixties onwards. The last time he was formally committed was in the spring of 1992, for almost three years. 

It was no surprise. She had seen enough war veterans to know that some things never left you, even when you left the battlefield. She had experienced it herself. Was experiencing it herself, for a lifetime she had never lived.

No wonder Barnes was having trouble. 

The only concern she had was when she checked his apartment details.

It was registered as belonging to Steve, and she wasn’t ready to face him yet.

He probably wouldn’t have recognised her, but she didn’t want to take the chance. 

Instead, she set up camp in a café across the street. Her hair was bleached blonde, and she was dressed like a neo punk with too much make-up. She kept a large pair of headphones on and her head down, but always with one eye on the building.

Her heart felt like it skipped a beat when she saw the familiar broad-shouldered figure of Steve Rogers emerging from the front door. She looked down at the magazine she was pretending to read and didn’t dare look up until he was half a block away.

For all that she was disguised, Steve was one of the most astute and observant people she had ever met.

She finished her drink and got up from the table, picking up her backpack. 

The building was just like every other building on the block. Steve could have lived anywhere he liked, but he chose a street not a half dozen blocks from his old home. She didn’t know if she remembered that from before, or from re-reading his files, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was in the place Steve considered home.

The advantage was that it also was laxer in security than a high-rise penthouse. He did have some modern technology in place, but nothing she didn’t know how to disable. She climbed swiftly up the fire escape, avoiding the security cameras by sticking to the outer edge of the staircases, and swung lightly onto the balcony of his apartment.

The metal grid barely made a sound beneath her feet.

She was in the window and the security alarms were disabled in less then ten seconds.

Easy.

She set down her backpack and looked around.

She didn’t know what she had imagined as Steve’s home, but it certainly wasn’t the bright, airy room she was standing in. She could see a easel and paints through an open doorway, and approached, curious.

It looked like he was working on some kind of landscape in oils. There were other paintings stacked against the walls, some finished, some half-finished. A table was covered in sketches and scribbles as well.

She moved them carefully with her fingertips, and saw a familiar face among them: her own.

The floorboards in the main room creaked.

Carter remained where she was, and picked the drawing up, looking at it.

She didn’t recognise the expression on her face, the brilliant smile, the fire in her eyes. It seemed that Peggy Carter was quite a woman.

“Hands where I can see them.”

She smiled slightly.

Good.

She raised her bare hands, letting the picture fall, and heard the man behind her suck in a breath.

“Carter?”

“Sergeant.” She pivoted to face him, unsurprised to see he was holding a gun. Quite an antiquated piece too. One of his favourites from the field. It was probably more ornament than weapon these days, and she doubted it was even loaded.

He was pale, and the gun was shaking in his scarred hands. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came to find you,” she replied.

“But why?” He looked terrified, as if she was going to rain hell down on him.

She lowered her hands slowly. “You said you were sorry,” she said. “Last time we met. Why?”

His eyes were round as saucers, and he lowered the gun, but he still held it tightly between his hands. “You broke in here to ask me that?”

“Among other things,” she said. “You knew me then. You were the Captain’s friend. I remember that much. But I can’t remember what you would need to say sorry for.”

Barnes’ face crumpled. “Oh god… Carter… Carter, I can’t…” He dropped his gun, his hands shaking too much to hold it, and he looked like he was about to run. She had seen that response before as well.

“Sergeant,” she said sharply. 

Even after seventy years, he straightened up, chin up, hands moving to his sides.

She approached him. He was terrified, pale and shaking. She could see the sweat beading his brow, could see the way his chest was rising and falling rapidly, could see the way his lips trembled. 

“Whatever you believe you have done, it’s in the past. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Tears broke from the corners of his eyes, rolling silently down his cheeks. “Doesn’t matter?” he whispered, his voice breaking. “Carter, it’s my fault you died.”


	12. Unduly

“Carter, it’s my fault you died.”

Barnes froze up, as if those words were enough to have him tried and executed. 

It felt a strange conversation to have in a brightly-lit, comfortable home.

This was a conversation for dark alleyways and low whispers.

Carter stared at him. “Explain.”

He took a quivering breath. “I-I was compromised. Zola. Zola was on the train. He had… done things to me. I-I didn’t think I could be trusted.” He was struggling with the words, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. “I told you to go in my place. Someone to watch Steve’s back. Someone who remembered the little guy.”

Carter put her head slowly to one side.

“Yes,” she murmured. 

The memory was there, brought to light by his words. A darkened hallway in a bunker? Barnes beckoning her, speaking in a low voice. Urgent. Desperate. He liked the other commandoes well enough, but it was _Steve_. He needed someone he could trust to watch his friend.

And she remembered smiling, nodding.

She understood exactly what he meant.

She could remember all the times she watched them leave, and knew that if all else failed, he still had Barnes to watch his back.

Barnes’ breath was coming in ragged gasps, and brought one hand up to cover his eyes, trying to pull himself together. “It shoulda been me, Carter,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I shoulda been on that train. I shoulda been the one who fell. Not you. I shoulda never asked you to go.”

She watched him for a moment.

She knew that feeling, the regret, the recrimination.

Silently, she stepped forward, closing the gap between them, and reached up to lay her hands on his shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault, Barnes,” she said. “You didn’t give me an order. You asked. I made the decision. You didn’t make me do anything I wouldn’t have done.”

He lowered his hand from his face, staring at her. “But you wouldn’t have been there…”

“Perhaps not,” she said, fixing his eyes with hers, “but how would that change anything? How would your death - or whatever this is - make things better for you? For him?”

His lips were trembling and his head fell forward, until his brow was resting on the place where the metal of her false arm met her shoulder. “He was a wreck,” he whispered. “After you were gone. And then he did his disappearing act.”

“And you were left behind,” she finished softly, her hands resting so lightly on his shoulders, as if he might break under her touch. He was fragile, more fragile than anyone had realised. He had been brittle when Steve brought him back from Schmidt’s labs, but without Steve there to support him? No wonder he’d broken. “I’m sorry, Barnes.”

“Sorry?” he echoed.

“That you had to lose him like that. That you were left behind.”

He didn’t speak, but she could feel the heat of his tears on her blouse. She raised her left hand - trembling, she thought in surprise - to cradle the back of his head, the cool metal of her fingers curling through his short hair.

He tensed, as if he expected her to do… what? Punish him? Break his neck? Hurt him?

“Barnes,” she said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“I could really do with a drink.”

He laughed unsteadily, straightening up, and rubbed his hand over his face. “You came to the wrong place,” he said. “I’ve been sober for almost two years. We don’t keep booze in the apartment anymore.”

Two years.

Since Steve’s return, then.

“Damn.”

He hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of his trousers, watching her guardedly. “I have coffee,” he said, “if you want.”

She nodded. “That would do,” she said.

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll be out… kitchen,” he said, trailing off.

Carter was half-turned back to the drawings, but called over her shoulder. “Barnes?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I would prefer if you didn’t let him know I’m here,” she said.

He was silent for a moment, and she knew he’d been planning on doing just that. “Okay.”

She picked up the drawing from the floor, taking it with her, as she followed Barnes through to the kitchen. It was a modern room, all polished surfaces and shining appliances. Barnes was moving around it with an easy familiarity.

“How long have you been living here?”

She could see the tension radiate across his shoulders. “A couple of years now,” he said.

She heard at once what was unsaid: since Steve came back.

He fiddled with the coffee canister. “We split our time between here and DC.” He shrugged. “All here now, since SHIELD went under.”

The kettle was on the stove, so Carter settled on one of the stools by the breakfast bar, her arms propped on the table. Her eyes kept drifting back to the drawing, to the smile, wondering if she might ever wear the expression again.

Barnes set a mug in front of her a few moments later, but he didn’t sit down. Instead, he leaned back against the kitchen counter opposite her, clutching his own mug between his hands as if it was a shield. 

Carter laid the drawing down and picked up the mug, wrapping both hands around it.

She could see the way Barnes’s eyes kept darting to her metal hand, and her arm. If he had seen any of the reports, he would know what it was capable of. What she had been made capable of. 

It was all part and parcel of the Winter Soldier project: maximum capacity for lethal violence.

“Does it hurt?” he asked finally.

She turned over her left hand, curling the fingers. It moved as smoothly as the right, linked into her nerves and muscles, but they hadn’t designed it for comfort. They wanted a weapon, and if the weapon was in sometimes in pain, that hardly mattered.

“Occasionally,” she replied, smoothing the truth with a partial lie.

He looked back down at his cup, staring into the coffee. “You said you wanted to ask me stuff,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

Carter looked at the drawing again, then pushed it to one side, and turned her eyes back to Barnes. “I wanted to know what happened,” she said. “To me, specifically, but I think I understand now.” She could almost touch the memories now that she had the shape of them. “I don’t imagine Phillips was too happy that I went on the mission.”

Barnes snorted. “Damn right he wasn’t,” he said. “He cussed me out and threatened me with demotion for even asking.”

That, Carter knew, wouldn’t have helped, when word came back of her passing. If Phillips had openly blamed Barnes for her insubordination, no wonder he blamed himself. 

She took a sip of the coffee. Black. One sugar. Not her preferred drink, but good enough.

“What about you?” she said. “What happened to you?”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “I think you can guess.”

There were details she didn’t know, but she couldn’t ask. Not when he was doing well. 

Instead, she nodded quietly. 

“It’s been easier, lately,” he added after a moment. “Steve found a place we could go to when we were in DC. Other vets who brought stuff back with them. The guy in charge, Sam, he keeps in touch.” He breathed in, then out in a rush. “It’s helping. And Steve. Steve’s helping.”

He went back to staring at his coffee, and she looked at her own.

“How has Steve been?” she finally asked. It was the question she’d longed to ask the man himself, but it felt so frivolous to waste their exchanges on something like that. “Really?”

“Better,” Barnes replied, then his mouth turned up in a small, careful smile. “Better, since you starting sending him those messages. He’d want to see you, y’know.”

She set down the mug and folded her hands together, one over the other. “I know,” she said quietly. “Just… not quite yet.”

“I get that,” he agreed. “Took me six months to believe it was really him. Must be worse trying to figure if it’s really you.”

Her own smile felt brittle. “You could say that,” she said. She slipped down off the stool, and didn’t miss the way he tensed. Afraid of her, she thought. Still afraid of her. A different kind of fear now, though. “I should go.”

“Can I tell Steve you came by?”

She didn’t look back at him, her hands curling by her sides. “I expect so,” she said.

He followed her back to the main room, where she picked up her backpack.

“You want to leave through the front door?” he said, “Or d’you get a kick out of making like you’re a cat-burglar?”

She almost laughed, but only almost. “It can be exhilarating,” she replied, “but on this occasion, the front door would be good.”

He led her to the door, then hesitated. “Thanks,” he said. “For coming by. For… for what you said.”

She looked up at him, remembering how much he used to swagger, his blatant flirtation. He was a ghost of that man now. She rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He didn’t flinch at the contact this time, but she heard his breath hitch. “Thank you,” she said, “for listening.”

He nodded self-consciously, stepping back to open the door.

Both of them stopped short, looking down.

“Huh,” Barnes said, leaning down to pick up the bouquet of flowers. He looked at them, then held them out. “They’re for you.”

Carter frowned. “What-?”

He turned the flowers so she could see the card: You look good blonde, S.

For the first time she could recall, Peggy Carter blushed like a schoolgirl.


	13. Unforgettable

The hold of the cargo ship was cold.

Carter drew the thick coat around her thermal suit, her legs pulled up against her chest to preserve warmth. She could have travelled on a cruise liner, basking in luxury, but the security checks were too stringent, and there were weapons she had no intention of giving up. 

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She withdrew it, the textured fabric of the gloves making the screen illuminate.

The technology in the small machine was incredibly advanced to pick up signals in the middle of the ocean. Several days before, Steve had mentioned it included software to patch through satellite relays and technology created by Stark. 

Her heart had stuttered at the name.

[Stark?] she'd sent.

[Tony], he had clarified. [Howard's son. You should meet him some time.]

She had lowered her phone, staring into nothing.

Tony Stark, son of Howard Stark.

The names drew up memories. 

Howard Stark had grinned at her when he offered her a newly-developed pistol.

Howard Stark had flirted shamelessly with her right in front of Steve.

Howard Stark had been terminated. 

She didn't know what reply she could make. 

The idea of meeting the child she had orphaned made her blood run cold. She could barely even communicate with Steve, knowing she had almost killed him. How on earth was she meant to meet the Stark boy? 

That was the last time they had exchanged messages.

She flicked open the newest message.

Romanoff.

It was almost a relief that it was only the intelligence she had been waiting for.

She downloaded the attachment, opening the files on the screen. Blueprints, maps, profiles, addresses, contacts in Kiev. Everything she could possibly require to make a start on finding the hidden facilities where she had been maintained. 

Carter read through page after page of data. Some of it she was familiar with, but much of it was new data. She was branching out beyond Hydra's reach now. 

She hadn’t always been in Hydra's hands. 

When the Cold War ended, the Winter Soldier was boxed up like an obsolete weapon, sold on to the highest bidder. Hydra, who had paid for her services several times before, were first in line to lay claim to her. Like a doll to be fought over.

Where there had once been smouldering fury, now there was ice.

Her memories were still not quite in focus, and they divided sharply between the blunt, abrupt world-view of the Winter Soldier, and glimpses of the woman she had once been. The Winter Soldier would have killed. Quiet and clean, but still killed. 

Agent Peggy Carter was far more methodical.

One didn’t simply swat one wasp and have done with it. One found the nest and smoked the little bastards out. There was something satisfying about bringing them kicking and screaming into the light of day. 

She closed down the specs once she had flicked through them all, and hesitated, her thumb hovering over the screen.

Steve’s message was still there, waiting for some kind of response.

What could she say? 

[Perhaps.]

It was neutral, neither confirmation or denial. 

It would have to do.

She closed the phone down, and slipped it into her pocket, then wrapped herself more snugly inside the thick coat, her woollen hat drawn down over her ears.

It was difficult to sleep, but especially when she kept thinking about the Winter Soldier’s past, the pieces of a life she needed to arrange, as much as they repelled her.

She could only vaguely recall her many assignments.

At last count, provided generously by the technicians and scientists she’d interrogated, she had visited the United States around a dozen times before Hydra had taken ownership of her. 

There were flickers of images that were correct, but felt wrong: gala events, press conferences, even the opening of an art gallery showing drawings - drawings she now recognised as Steve’s work. There were no deaths. She was simply taken around grand places on the arm of a man in a suit, displayed like a jewel. There was no rhyme or reason for it.

The more she tried to grasp at those moments, the more they slipped through her fingers.

And then, there was the last time she saw Stark.

That memory had crept into her nightmares, ever since Steve sent her the message.

It was sharp and clear and every time she dreamed it, she was standing there, watching it play out before her eyes over and over again.

Her handlers had provided her with a uniform, informing her that her appearance might be something to distract the driver. The Winter Soldier never questioned it. The Winter Soldier never questioned anything. 

She was given her assignment: Stark was due to be travelling along a particular stretch of road on a particular night. It was the route down from his private winter getaway. She was to make it look like an accident. There would be no collateral. 

It was hardly a challenge to craft layers of ice onto the meticulously tended road. The surface shone black in the moonlight when she was done. It was a full moon that night, high and bright and exactly the kind of light the Winter Soldier usually avoided. 

Her appearance was meant to be a distraction, so she was standing there, in the middle of the road, when Stark’s car appeared, the headlamps shining on the khaki skirt and jacket. She raised her head to look at the targets a split-second before the car’s tyres hit the ice. The driver was already swerving wildly to avoid her. The car hit the ice, and careened off the edge of the road, tumbling down, end over end, into the valley bed below.

She stood on the edge of the road, watching impassively, as the driver clawed his way out of the car. The car was burning, and he risked the flames, struggling to drag Stark free, beating at the man’s burning clothes with his bare hands. Then another passenger. A woman. Neither she nor Stark were moving of their own volition. The night was cold. If they had survived the crash, they would not last long.

The driver looked up at her, his face a mask of blood in the moonlight, his hands raw from the flames. He was crying out, but the wind carried the sound away.

She could have descended the cliff, dealt with him.

No collateral. That was the order.

So she walked away.

Her assignment was complete.

Each night, the nightmare came, over and over, and each night, there was some new detail that she recalled, some element of it that made her draw unsteady breaths and press her head back against the shipping crate that was her hiding place. 

Steve had no idea.

No one knew of her involvement.

No one, except the driver, and the winter night should have dealt with him too. 

Should have.

That…

That was the reason.

That was why the dream kept playing over and over, showing her what was standing right in front of her.

Carter’s breath caught in her chest.

The driver who survived. The driver who had seen her standing on that road, dressed in the uniform she’d worn in the SSR. The driver with burnt hands. 

No.

He wasn’t a driver anymore. 

She knew him.

The man with burnt hands who wanted to know that she was real this time. The man with burnt hands who wanted to know how much she remembered. The man with burnt hands who looked at her with wary fear when she went near him.

 _Barnes_.


	14. Unfair

Carter remembered little of Russia, but the bone-deep cold was something no one could forget once they had experienced it. It brought back recollections of cryo-chambers and being pinned down until the sedatives took hold.

She walked streets she had never seen with her conscious eyes, and yet could remember them, when the city was called another name. She remembered resting on a rooftop, just there, and dealing with those who would disrupt order within the city. When people spoke to her, she replied in their language with a fluency that terrified her.

This was the place where the Winter Soldier was born.

Pandora’s box was creeping open, wider with every day she spent there. The knowledge, the memories, seeping through were almost enough to drive her to drink for some kind of respite. 

Instincts took over when the horror became too much.

The journey hadn’t been difficult, but the solitude and quiet had awoken memories she wasn’t ready to face: friends she had murdered; allies who had seen her kill. If Barnes knew what she’d done, then Steve probably knew too. 

Stark was their friend and ally, and she had killed him.

No. 

The Winter Soldier had killed him.

From this very city, she had been given the command. 

Carter’s feet carried her to places the Winter Soldier had walked.

Even though Romanoff and her contacts had given her information and a starting point, nothing had prepared her for the moment she stepped out into the streets of Leningrad. 

No, not anymore.

St. Petersburg.

It felt bigger than it should have, louder, busier. There were cars and motorbikes everywhere, and she had to pay attention to keep from being knocked off her feet. The air was thick with fumes and the scent of the sea and winter. 

She walked in silence, wrapped warmly against the cold and the memories, until she came to the place that her mind insisted was ‘base’. 

The building that had once been a munitions factory was gone. Instead, it was covered in a towering modern monstrosity of glass and steel. It was bright and polished and gleaming. The staircase that led down to the basement wouldn’t fit in a building like that. If there staircase was gone, then there was no laboratory. There was no cryo-chamber. There was nothing left of the place that she could barely remember.

Carter looked up at the building.

Perhaps they were burying their dirty secrets.

Perhaps they didn’t want anyone to look to closely.

Snow was falling, and clinging, freezing, to her lashes.

She was tired. She was so tired of trying to prove who she was, when everything about the place was only telling her what she had become. This was where a weapon came from, and that wasn’t a legacy that could just be glossed over with glass and shiny buildings. 

Her head was aching and she retreated to a hotel, and began a new search into the building and its surroundings. The building wasn’t anything of particular interest, but the man who owned the land, and maintained ownership rights of the property?

That name was very interesting.

The Winter Soldier remembered her commanding officer.

The Winter Soldier was… disappointed.

She rolled out her pack on the narrow bed.

The Winter Soldier did not have an assignment. The Winter Soldier had been sold to the West, the ones they called enemies. Not because the West had need of her. Not because she was flawed. She was broken like a beast and sold at market, and he had handed her new owners the whip to subdue her.

The Winter Soldier ran her hands over the array of weapons. 

The Winter Soldier did not appreciate betrayal. 

The city was dark when she returned to the building.

The heavy doors were locked and there were armed security teams patrolling the building. Guards were not utilised unless something required protection. Three armed pairs. One solitary man at the security desk. Professional.

She didn’t intend to enter through the door.

The building was modern, but she had walked a circuit of it by daylight and found the weaknesses. There were ventilation ducts some seven levels up. It took no effort to send a grappling line up around one of the broad girders. She climbed up the side of the building, silent as a shadow. 

The ducts were narrow, but she had dealt with worse. She inched her way along, her bodysuit letting her slide smoothly without a sound. It retained body heat, giving off a minimal heat signature. A gift from Natalia Alianovna. A precaution.

She dropped down into the halls, her feet making no sound, keeping out of the light as she ran.

The first security team had no warning, one unconscious before the other even saw her. The second was well-trained. No hesitation. Hand. Gun. She was on him before he could raise it, tearing it from his hand to pistolwhip him in a backhand. He folded to the floor. 

She dragged them into one of the offices, binding them hand and foot and gagging them.

The next pair were not so easy.

The desk guard must have warned that something was amiss, because they both walked beneath her, their guns out. They didn’t speak to one another, only communicating in hand-gestures. Military. Too young to be KGB. 

She landed lightly behind them, but they were very good.

One spun, gun raised, but she’d already dropped to the floor and her feet caught him in the middle of the chest, throwing him backwards. He struck the wall behind him, but she was already on her feet, catching the gun of the other in her left hand. He fired, and the impact of the bullet against her palm shuddered through the length of her arm.

She smiled grimly at him and punched up under his jaw, knocking his head sharply back. An incapacitating blow. He fell, and she side-stepped to avoid a punch from his colleague. He was snapping into his radio, and that was good too. Too many would try and fight, and not report. Effective. But it also left him to defend himself with one less limb.

She blocked another blow, this one from his left leg. Her right hand caught him by the calf, tilting him off-balance, and she brought her metal hand down on his knee like a blade. The crack was audible, and he howled in pain. 

She tightened her grip on his calf, keeping him from falling backwards, then punched him squarely between the eyes with her left. He went down like a tree, and stayed there. 

Their guns were hooked onto her belt, and she took one of their radios, then pinioned them together with garotte wire at wrists, elbows, and ankles, leaving them lying where they fell. 

The radio crackled in her hand. She lifted it to her mouth.

“Do I have your attention?” she asked in that language they had forced into her head.

“You do indeed.” The voice that came from the radio made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She took a shuddering breath.

“General.”

The man chuckled. His voice was deep, warm. He should have been a benevolent father, a Saint Nicholas in Russian garb. Everything about him added strength to the lie: dark eyes that shone honey-brown in mirth, hands soft as weathered leather, dimples that curved hollows in his cheeks. 

“I have a door, Matryoshka,” he said. “You could have knocked.”

Matryoshka. 

The name was echoing back on her a thousand times.

She looked down at the two men whimpering at her feet. “I did.” She turned, seeking out the nearest surveillance camera and looked up into it. “You dispensed with me.”

“You were sent where you were required,” he lied smoothly. “Now, you have come home.”

“Yes.”

“For what purpose?”

Her fingers twitched by her sides. “My own.”

He laughed again and her fingers curled into fists. “Come down to the lobby, then, Matryoshka,” he said. “We will discuss your purpose.”

It was a trap, of course.

A sensible person would have returned the way she came.

There was a staircase, a long one, spiralling down over a wide open atrium. As she stepped out onto it, she glanced over the banister to see a legion of guards, a dozen at least. The General wasn’t visible in the mass of uniformed and armed bodies. 

She unclipped a band from her wrist as she descended the staircase, twisting a small device free. The plating was cool against her fingertips, and she locked the small metal disc in place in the centre of her metal hand. 

A dozen guns were trained on her, but she knew they wouldn’t fire without an express command from the General. She was too valuable for that, an asset. Her stolen guns were hooked onto her belt, and at her nape. 

“I didn’t come this far for toy soldiers, General,” she said quietly. 

She heard the chuckle from behind them. “And I did not live so long that I learned to lower my guard,” he said. 

The guards parted enough to let her see a glimpse of him. She almost didn’t recognise him. He had aged a great deal, his shoulders rounded and one hand resting on a cane. His iron-grey hair had turned snow white, and his leonine face was more jowly than she remembered.

His eyes, though, remained the same.

One hand moved to her belt, the gun raised in her flesh hand in a heartbeat. The guards closed ranks, shielding him.

The Winter Soldier would not have cared about collateral. 

That was what made them different.

“So you are here to kill me.”

“Not specifically,” she replied coolly. 

The laboratory was the target, if any trace of it remained. It was petty and it was childish and she wanted to see it burn to the ground. 

He was silent for a moment. “I find it very difficult to believe you,” he said. 

“A little ironic, don’t you think?” she retorted. 

“Tell me, Matryoshka,” he said, jovial and merry and smug, “do you remember what I told you when you passed into my care?”

Carter’s stomach felt like it was twisting in knots. Yes. Yes, she remembered. Yes, she knew what he intended. And there was no way to know if his hold on her was broken, if she was as free as Steve insisted she was.

“Yes,” she whispered. 

“Tell me.”

“Your soldiers will always obey you.”

“Always,” he said. “Do you remember summer rainfall on the Volga, Matryoshka?”

Carter’s eyes fell closed against her own volition, her head rocking forward. Her breathing stuttered, remembering a thousand uses of those words, stripping away her control, what little he had granted. 

The guards moved aside and she heard the tap-step-step of his approach. The scent of his cigars - still the same - wrapped around her like a noose.

“Drop your gun, Matryoshka,” he murmured.

Her hand trembled and jerked, then her fingers opened and the gun fell to the floor.

She lifted her eyes, panting, shaking.

General Lukin smiled at her, the lines around his mouth deepening, his dimples dark pits in his wrinkled cheeks. “Welcome home, Matryoshka.”


	15. Underneath

The laboratory was still there, hidden beneath the building like a serpent beneath a flower. 

Lukin led the way, his steps measured and slow. Carter fell into step behind him, flanked by two guards. The other guards were dispatched to clean up their comrades, and tend their wounds.

They hadn’t even disarmed her. 

Two guns were still resting, weighted, against her right hip and between her shoulder blades, but her hands rested loosely at her sides. They hadn’t disarmed her physically, because Lukin had done more than that with a few small words.

The staircase looked the same. The tiles had the same pattern as they descended. The chips and cracks had not been repaired. The only real difference was the light: it was brighter, sharp and electric, where they had once depended on small gas lamps on the walls. Preserving energy for the laboratory was no longer necessary. That spoke of financing and ongoing support.

Lukin typed in a passcode on a gleaming security panel and placed his eye to the scanner. 

The door opened a moment later.

Carter wanted to retreat, to turn away, the scent of the place making her whole body contract in revulsion. The equipment was more modern, the light brighter, but nothing could change the scent of the place where they had taken her apart and remade her. 

She stepped across the threshold, drawing a breath as memories flared to life, triggered by objects she knew, recognised, recoiled from. The primary object was the cryo stasis chamber against the wall. It was occupied by a gaunt, pale young woman, her face crystalised with ice, pearly white in the fluorescent light.

Carter’s nails bit into her palm.

“Don’t be jealous, Matryoshka,” Lukin said. He spoke to her as if she was a spurned lover, not a science experiment. “You know I have a liking for pretty weapons, but you were always my favourite.”

She knew.

Oh, yes, she knew.

Women, he often said, were underestimated, but they could access so many places that men would not, by the simple default of their sex. Men could be made weak by them. Women could be made simple. 

That was why he called her that name: his little Russian doll of many faces.

He stopped by a workbench. There were technicians scattered around the room, all of them looking at her with a combination of terror and awe.

“Disarm,” he said, patting the counter. “All your weapons.”

She never took her eyes from his face as she lifted her right hand and removed the guns. Her left arm remained motionless at her side. Several EMP pulse detonators followed. Her blades and garrotting wire rattled and clattered. She finally looked at her arm. 

“Of course,” he said, “that can remain.” He studied her. “Your arm troubles you?”

She raised her chin slightly. “The West lack the technology to maintain it. After combat, it takes time to reset.”

He ran his knuckle over his chin thoughtfully. Once, he wore a beard. Now, his chin curled into another, which rested on the collar of his shirt. “Disrobe,” he ordered. “We will see what can be done.”

Another test of his control, she knew.

Her hand was at her collar almost as soon as he finished speaking. It was no simple task to remove the fitted suit with one hand. Lukin offered no help, just watching her. He had often watched her in the past. He took pleasure from his collection far too readily. 

Carter stepped out of the legs, one foot, then another. The tiles of the floor were cool beneath her feet, and her skin prickled with gooseflesh. She balled up the uniform, staring at him defiantly, and hurled it beyond him, as if its presence meant nothing to her.

Lukin’s lips twitched as he looked her up and down. 

She knew the guards would be staring too, as much as the technicians. She clenched her right hand, breathed deeply, and said nothing. 

“Turn around,” Lukin commanded. “Let me see what damage they have done to you.”

Carter turned on the spot, keeping her head high and her eyes fixed on a point beyond the walls. It was easier to put her humiliation aside. It would keep. There would be another time to weep, not now, not when they wanted to see her break.

His hand closed on her right shoulder when she had her back to him, and she felt his leather-soft fingers touching the scars left by guns and blades.

“They did not follow my instructions,” he said with a sigh. “Such needless damage.”

Carter tried to ignore the revulsion that was creeping up her throat.

“You will have a use for me, then?” she said, in the neutral tone that was and always would be the Winter Soldier on her lips. 

He released her shoulder and let her turn back to face him. “There are always uses for a weapon as effective as you, Matryoshka,” he said, lifting his hand to pinch her chin between forefinger and thumb. His grip was cruel. “Our former brothers and sisters are in need of a lesson in respect.”

She neither pulled away nor leaned into his touch, simply staring at him.

He smiled, stepping back. “Now, come,” he said. “Let me see what they have done to my greatest weapon.” He beckoned, crooking his fingers. She curled the fingers of her right arm under the wrist of her false arm, lifting it, palm down, to present to him.

Lukin touched her arm with far more reverence than he would ever show her. He examined the joints at shoulder, wrist, elbow. He handled her limb as if it were the most valuable weapon in his arsenal. Perhaps it was. 

Carter didn’t move, letting him turned her arm this way and that. When pain shot down her nerves and her breath hissed through her teeth, he only smiled more. 

Finally, he turned over her hand.

The metal fingers were curled over her palm, and he had to pry each one open, lubricating them with a smear of oil and wiping away the residue.

Carter looked sidelong at him between her lashes, and saw him frown at her palm, and the gleaming disc at the centre. 

“How long has this been in place?” he asked. “Who put it there?”

“My handler,” she lied. “He indicated it was a control.”

He ran his thumb over the disc.

The trigger clicked in place.

On the far side of the room, the explosives laced through the empty bodysuit detonated, the blast knocking anyone who wasn’t expecting it off their feet. The flames billowed up and out, licking across the walls and curling around the gas cylinders.

The technicians were bleeding, moaning, screaming, and scrambling for the door like rats in a trap. The guards stumbled back to their feet, their guns out, but not fast enough. Carter had both guns from the workbench in her hands and spun.

One bullet.

Another.

Two down.

Lukin was on the floor.

Another explosion spread flame across the ceiling.

He was showered with shards of glass, his face and hands bleeding, and he looked up in shock and horror. “What is this?” he demanded.

Peggy Carter pressed the gun to the middle of his forehead.

“A lesson,” she replied, and fired.


	16. Unresisting

Peggy leaned heavily against the wall.

She was exhausted.

Her escape from Russia had been a trial. 

A small fortune - peeled from Lukin’s body before the flames took hold - got her access to a vehicle, and the remainder helped ease the way across the border into Finland, leaving her with nothing but the clothes on her back and the phone which was her only source of contact.

What made it worse was that her body was a mess from the explosions, and fighting her way out of Lukin’s building before it came down around her. 

She had bound up the wounds as much as she could, but sometimes, the pain got too much. When that happened, she would pull into the side of the road and just try and remember how to breathe.

Romanoff - thank God for the woman - sent her the details of contacts in Helsinki, who would not be adverse to helping her. They got her to a private plane in the dead of night and shipped her back to America within twelve hours of an important business building going up in flames in St Petersburg. 

The pilot advised her that there were people waiting at the airport. The last thing she wanted was a welcome committee, and as soon as she stepped off the plane, she sought the shadows and gave them the slip. One of them had conveniently left their keys in the car.

That same car was abandoned a long way off, and she had snagged a cab to go the rest of the way. With a hat and hood pulled close around her face, the driver didn’t even notice the blood and bruises.

It was early in the morning when she staggered into the staircase, and there was every chance that Steve would be there, but there was nowhere else she could go, and no one else who might help her.

She lifted her right hand and knocked once, then sank back against the wall opposite the door. Her legs were refusing to hold her up any longer, so she folded down to the floor. She was really so very tired.

The door opened and she lifted her head, looking up.

Barnes was standing there, in a t-shirt and boxer shorts.

“Carter?” He was on his knees beside her in a second. “Oh God, Carter. What the hell are you doing here?”

She lifted her hand - shaking - to hold her coat closed tight around her. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

He didn’t even hesitate, slipping one arm under her legs, and the other behind her back. She kept herself from flinching in pain, and her metal arm moved of its own volition to rest around his shoulders. Their faces were so close, and she could see the flickers of that fear, diminished now, but still there.

“You saw me,” she said, and her voice was a weak and fragile sound. “You saw me when Stark…” She wanted to weep. “You saw me.”

“I saw the Winter Soldier,” he replied, his voice just as unsteady. “That’s not you.” He lifted her up as if she was as light as a child. Her head fell to rest on his shoulder, and she closed her eyes. Her cheeks felt hot and wet, and she was so very tired. 

Barnes carried her back into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind him.

He set her gently down on the couch, then crouched in front of her. “Are you hurt?”

She nodded, unable to meet his eyes.

Barnes undid her coat and removed the thick woollen pullover she was wearing. She let him, unresisting. He was gentle and he was careful, and he cursed the air blue when he saw the burns and blisters and bruises all over her. 

“You should be in a hospital,” he said.

“No,” she whispered. “Please. I’ve known too many doctors.”

He lifted his hand, curling his palm along her cheek, and leaned forward, kissing her abruptly on the brow. The gesture made fresh tears well in her eyes. “You’re a stubborn bitch, Carter,” he said, his cheek pressing to her hair. “Always did like stubborn bitches.”

She lifted her trembling hand to brush uselessly at her cheek. “Manners, Sergeant,” she whispered. “Manners in front of a lady.”

He straightened up, getting to his feet. “When I meet one, I’ll use them,” he said. “Stay put.”

Even if she wanted to, Peggy knew she had reached the limit of her strength. She had barely slept in three days. Her body was a ruin. Her mind was likely worse. The most she could do was sit and stare at her hands until he returned.

He stripped off the bloody mess that was her clothing. He cleaned her wounds, putting salve on the worst of the burns, dressed the deeper cuts, tying off the bandages with jaunty bows, each one of which earned a small but genuine smile from her.

The sun was creeping across the floor with the dawn when he was done. She sat - drowned in one of his t-shirts - on the couch, her hands wrapped around a mug of inexpertly-made Earl Grey.

Barnes was sitting on the floor near her feet, watching her with concern.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked finally.

Peggy shook her head. “Stop,” she said quietly. “Just for a little while.”

“You can stop completely, y’know,” he said.

She raised her eyes to meet his. They were as bloodshot as her own. “How can I?” she asked in a whisper. “You saw me. You saw what they made me do. They’re still doing it, to other people, and if I don’t stop them, who will?”

He reached out, taking the cup from her shaking hands. “You’re not alone, Carter,” he said. “You know that, right?”

She drew her hands back towards her.

“I can’t make people associate with me, not knowing what I did.” she said. She looked back at him. “Barnes, you’re terrified of me.”

He didn’t deny it, and she was grateful for that. 

He set her cup down on the floor beside him. “You wanted to know what happened to me, after you were lost,” he said. His voice was lower, a flat monotone. “We found out what Zola was doing when he used me as a lab rat.” His thumb rubbed against the side of his fingers. “It was meant to be like Steve. I was meant to be like Steve, but it didn’t work. I got some of the strength, and a little of the healing, enough to keep me healthy and younger than I should be, but whatever the hell it was, it was closer to Red Skull than the stuff Steve got.”

He looked up at the ceiling, blinking hard. “I tried to get to Zola, because he was the reason you’d been there in the first place. I wasn’t allowed to go on the mission, but they couldn’t stop me getting to him once he was caught. They tried to stop me and I… punched one of the guards. Folded his face in like a newspaper.”

Peggy shivered.

She remembered memories of people torn apart, necks snapped, bones broken with such ease that she might have been playing with rag dolls. To be made into a monster was something no one deserved.

“He did something,” Barnes continued in the same hollow voice. “Never found out exactly what, but I came back wrong.” He brought his gaze down from the ceiling to look at her. “So I look scared shitless when you’re around? The guys looked at me like that. I know what it’s like, Carter. Some crazy bastard took me and turned me into a weapon too.”

It was a comfort, painful as it was to hear it.

She moved her foot, letting her toes nudge against his. Her feet were cold and he made a small, exasperated sound, lifting both her bare feet into a blanket in his lap, rubbing them to warm them. 

“Is that why?” she asked tentatively, “The hospitals?”

His hands went still around her feet. “At first, yeah,” he said finally. “When Steve died…” He hesitated. “I was a fucking disaster. Steve was the only one who wasn’t afraid of me, and he was gone and I wasn’t good.” He breathed out, long and low. “Stark got me set up somewhere safe. Somewhere good. I got better for a while.”

“What happened?” 

He raised his eyes. “You did.”

“I don’t underst-”

“You were there, Carter,” he said, sighing. “I thought I was having some kind of breakdown all that time.” He shook his head. “Me and Stark had been working on something, something big. Captain America big.” He shook his head. “Everything was going great, and then I started seeing you everywhere I looked. It made me remember the night I did what he wanted me to do. Zola. He laughed when I killed the guy, y’know. The son of a bitch laughed. Like I’d done a trick.”

Like Karpov.

Like Lukin.

Like Pierce.

They wanted him amenable. Useful. Or too damaged to be beneficial to Stark.

“An art gallery,” she murmured, half to herself. “A gallery of Steve’s work. I… can remember being there.”

Barnes went rigid. “You were? Seriously?”

Peggy nodded. “There were missions to New York. Maybe ten? From 1960?”

“Christ,” he breathed. “So it wasn’t imagination? None of it?”

She shook her head. “I- The Soldier was sent to be an escort,” she said quietly, remembering oily hair and oily hands. “No kills. No intel gathered.” She shivered. “I think you were the target all the time.”

He rubbed her feet in the blanket. “Why?” he asked. “What the hell could I ever do to them?”

She leaned forward, pressing her fingers gently to his cheek, lifting his face to hers. “Maybe you’re more like Steve than you thought,” she said. “Maybe you could have been a threat.”

He stared at her, then laughed unsteadily. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

“I think so,” she said quietly. “You and Stark were working on something big, but they were pointing the Winter Soldier at you. They wanted you unstable. Not Stark.”

He drew back from her hand. “I think you’re getting tired, Carter,” he said. “You’re talking crazy.”

She lifted her feet back from the blanket, getting unsteadily to her feet. “Is there a hotel near here?”

He gave her a look. “You think I’m letting you walk out of here in that state?” he said. “Fuck no.” He bent and caught her under her knees and around her back again, scooping her up. “I’ve got work to do and you can have my bed.”

“But Steve…” she protested.

“Steve’ll be glad to know that the crazy woman who jacked his car at the airport is safe and resting,” he replied. Peggy blinked mutely at him. He looked down at her and an amused smirk quirked his lips up as he carried her through to a plain, surprisingly tidy bedroom. “Oh, you didn’t know he was there to meet you? Well done, Carter. You just stole your not-boyfriend’s car.”

Carter winced as he set her down on the sheets, more from embarrassment than any pain. “Bollocks.”

“Huh?”

“I might have left it in the Bronx.”


	17. Unassuming

Peggy woke, disorientated.

The room was high-ceilinged and only a little cool. She was lying in a broad, firm bed, tangled in sheets that held the musk of a man. Daylight was visible through a crack in blackout curtains, high, midday at her best guess. 

When she started to sit up, she winced as pain and recollection surged.

Oh.

Yes.

She was in the apartment that Barnes shared with Steve.

Barnes had plied her with some kind of painkillers and for the first time in weeks, she had slept without nightmares.

The bed creaked as she gingerly pushed the sheets aside, looking down at herself. 

The bandages were still in place, but she could see dark bruises mottled on her bare legs. The back of her left calf had been scraped raw when she made her escape from Lukin’s facility. Rolling naked across icy Russia roads never was a good idea.

Every inch of her was aching.

For once, she had reason to be thankful for Zola’s developments. 

On the way out of Lukin’s laboratory, she snatched all the research she could find, as well as the poor girl in the cryo tube. The girl was barely weeks into the programme, so she was deposited at a hospital, with real doctors. 

The reports, however, stayed in Peggy’s hands.

Lukin’s predecessor, a man called Karpov, had used intelligence scavenged from Schmidt’s facilities to try and adapt Zola’s research. She healed quicker than a normal person would, and her strength had increased, but she was a precise weapon, not a blunt instrument.

Karpov had taken Zola’s plans and honed them to a point and that was why she was still alive and Lukin was incinerated.

Something buzzed and she looked around, pushing her hair back from her face.

Her phone was sitting on a small box that appeared to serve as a nightstand. She picked it up, squinting as the screen illuminated.

There was a new message.

From Steve.

[There are pancakes, if you’re hungry.]

She stared at it for a long while, then got unsteadily to her feet. The bedroom opened into a hall, and she braced her hand against the wall, only stopping to use the facilities. It felt like she was washing her hands in slow motion, sluggish and tired.

Perhaps the medication. Perhaps just exhaustion. 

Finally, she raised her eyes to the glass above the sink. 

She would not have recognised herself. What was left of her hair was singed black, and one side of her face was swollen. She couldn’t recall if a fist or a foot hit her, but its owner was incapacitated regardless. She cupped her hand under the tap and scooped some water to her mouth, her lower lip stinging where it was cracked.

Her phone was resting on the polished counter and she looked at it.

If she was more aware, she knew she would have slipped out of Barnes’ window as soon as she woke. Steve probably expected that. If she hadn’t felt like the walking dead, her limbs stiff with pain and weariness, she might have been halfway to Manhattan before the message even reached her phone.

Instead, she braced her hand against the wall and continued down the hall towards the kitchen.

There was music playing. When she entered, she stopped in the doorway, hand resting against the jamb. 

Steve was there, in front of her, the first time she had really seen him since the hospital. 

He was humming to himself, his back to her, as he worked at the stove.

Peggy limped closer. 

Her heart was pounding rapidly and every beat made her wounds throb. She stumbled, leaning heavily against the breakfast bar, the stool scraping on the floor, and she saw the way Steve’s shoulders tensed, as if he wanted to turn, to help her.

It took more effort than she cared to admit to lift herself onto the stool. She had no idea what she was meant to say, much less what she was meant to do. It was all she could do to lay her hands on the counter and pray that they would stop trembling.

Steve didn’t turn, and kept humming softly.

Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she turned it over.

[You want tea?]

She wanted to smile, but it felt like such an effort.

[Yes. Please. White. One sugar.]

She laid the phone down on the counter, closing her eyes. The pain in her back told her the burns were beginning to heal. Sometimes, the healing was as bad as the hurt itself.

There was a clatter in front of her and she opened her eyes.

A cup and saucer, and Steve’s hand, just starting to withdraw.

Her own hand moved faster than she thought she could, catching his wrist, and she took an unsteady breath before raising her eyes, looking up at him for the first time since the hospital.

He looked well, stronger than he had, and his features softened in a smile.

“Hey.”

Her lips were trembling, and when she spoke, her voice was a fragile, brittle sound. “Hello.”

His fingers moved, curling gently around her bandaged wrist. 

He always was gentle, she remembered. He remembered what it was like to be weak, and so, he was always unconsciously gentle, his hands broad but touching so softly.

“Rough week?”

Suddenly, she was laughing and crying at the same time, and it felt utterly idiotic. 

Steve didn’t release her forearm, keeping his touch light around it, as he walked round the end of the breakfast bar, and right up to her. He was tall and broad and solid and safe and everything she wasn’t and didn’t deserve to be near.

His other hand came up, resting around her left shoulder, the uninjured one, and drew her against his chest. She folded, then, too tired to hold the walls and shields in place, too broken to be strong, and crumpled against his chest, clutching his wrist with one hand, and his side with the other, holding him as if he was her lifeline.

Tears that she thought had been burnt away were flowing, and she was shaking, but she didn’t make a sound, not a single one. He didn’t say anything either, and she was grateful for that. If he said she was going to be all right, it would have felt untrue.

His hand moved from her shoulder to her hair, singed as it was, smoothing it, his lips pressing to her crown. 

In turn, her metal fingers uncurled from his side, slipping up, splaying low on his back. 

She remembered holding a man like that once before, before sinking her fingers through his skin, jerking his spine, snapping. She remembered the taste of blood, metallic on her tongue, and the way he screamed. 

Peggy recoiled with a sharp gasp. 

Target. 

Steve was not a target.

Steve’s hands were still, open, light, lifting away.

“Want me to back off?” he asked quietly.

“No,” she whispered. “For the love of God, no.”

He leaned back into her without a second thought.

Into her, the woman who was capable of killing him, with complete trust.

She pressed her cheek against the firm, broad expanse of his chest, and listened to the steady beat of his heart in her ear. It made it real. It made him real. He was here, standing before her, and holding her.

The tears were hot and silent, and she wrapped her arms around him, and let him hold her as if he never wanted to let go.


	18. Uniform

Eventually, she had pancakes.

Steve made them with a practised hand, serving up a pile that she was sure would be too much for her. Her body, it seemed, disagreed. She ate as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks, washing them down with two cups of tea, her eyes on the plate the whole time.

She was grateful that he didn’t press for conversation. 

Instead, he tidied up the kitchen, washing the pile of dishes by hand, his back to her. She felt less ashamed of wolfing down her food like a half-starved animal knowing he wasn’t looking at her. 

It was only when she set down the fork on the plate that he turned.

“You brought files with you,” he said.

She stared at him for a moment too long, trying to remember. Yes. Files. She had bundled them into her knapsack, crushed beneath the driver’s seat of the car in the mad rush from St Petersburg to Helsinki. She had read them on the plane. She had stared at them until her eyes felt raw and sullied.

“Yes.”

He hesitated, then said, “Natasha’s been going through them with us, while you were sleeping.”

Peggy looked back down at the plate.

He already knew she was the Winter Soldier. Nothing could undo that knowledge.

The information in the file, though, was something else. It spoke of the programming, coding, uses the soldiers could be put to, whether armed or unarmed. Karpov did not differentiate between the genders of his weapons, but Lukin liked his pretty and female. Accessible.

The name Matryoshka echoed in her ear and sent a shudder of revulsion down her spine.

A broken weapon. Damaged goods.

“I see,” she said, surprised how steady her voice was. 

“Peggy…” he began.

She held up her hand, stopping him before he could try and be comforting. “I want to see what progress she has made,” she said, getting slowly down from the stool. “Is she here?”

Steve came around the end of the breakfast bar, and when he offered her his arm, it didn’t feel like weakness to take it. He helped her through to the main room, which was bright with winter sunlight. Barnes was sitting on the floor, surrounded by a spread of papers, and Romanoff was curled up on the couch.

“Any details on how many there are?” Barnes said to Romanoff without looking up.

“At least seven,” Peggy said quietly.

Barnes and Romanoff both looked up sharply. She didn’t look back at them. The last thing she needed was pity or compassion. Instead, she looked at the array of paper. “The numbers aren’t in the files, but I trained with several of them. There may have been more that I never knew.”

“So at least seven people treated like you were?” Steve sounded sickened.

She was shivering again, but shook her head. “None quite like me,” she said slowly, releasing his arm, and picking her way carefully over to the couch. Every step sent pain blazing through her body. Romanoff drew up her legs to make room for has as she slowly sat. “I was a… prototype.”

“Fucking hell,” Barnes murmured. Peggy looked over at him, and he offered her a brief smile. “You look better.”

“Liar.”

He held up a hand, swaying it from side to side. “Better than you were, still not as good as you normally look.”

Peggy breathed in and out slowly as she leaned back against the cushions. “Compliments abound, sergeant,” she murmured, closing her eyes. Her fingers curled and uncurled in her lap. “There are perhaps three of those seven still active.”

“Only three?” Steve was frowning. She could hear it in his voice. “What happened to the other four?”

Peggy smiled slightly. “Number seven was deposited at a hospital,” she murmured. “Number four, I believe, terminated himself in the course of a mission. Speculation, but it fits with the timetable when number five was created.”

“And the other two?” Barnes asked.

“Are sitting on this couch, sergeant,” she murmured without opening her eyes. “The Winter Soldier, crafted for the Cold War, and the Black Widow, sent after men who were too foolish to see her coming.” Peggy turned her head and opened her eyes, looking at Romanoff. “I feel I ought to apologise.”

Natasha’s arms were wrapped around her knees, and for a moment, she looked like the small child who had been presented to her for training. “It wasn’t you.”

“Not all of it,” Peggy agreed, “but they weren’t the people who taught me how to kill. I knew that long before I fell into their hands.”

“Peggy,” Steve said. His voice was sad, quiet. 

“No,” she said firmly. “No. I have to acknowledge who I was and what I was capable of before. I know who I was. What I could do.” She breathed deeply, then exhaled. “They simply took advantage of the fact.” She winced as pain shot down her back and sat up from the couch, her breath hissing between her teeth. “I was the start of it. Now, I’ll finish it.”

“We.”

Romanoff’s voice was quiet, but it was hard.

Peggy turned to look at her. “This can’t be vengeance.”

Blue eyes met her. “Can’t it?” she said. “I saw the reports from St. Petersburg. You burned the place to the ground. Three bodies, clean headshots.”

Peggy’s hands closed into tight fists. “Self-defence,” she said. “He attempt to reboot my programming.” She met Romanoff’s eyes coolly. “Count yourself fortunate that you were never wiped completely, Natalia Alianovna. You may be cursed with unpleasant memories, but at least they’re yours.” She opened out her hands, spreading them on her bare, bruised knees. “I was controlled. They had words that could make me compliant. They… he attempted to use it.”

“The General?” 

Peggy nodded once, sharply. She could see the girl understood. 

Lukin always did have a taste for deadly beautiful toys.

She couldn’t look at Steve or Barnes, or even at Romanoff anymore.

“I need to bathe,” she said, getting up stiffly. Steve started to rise, but she held up a hand, and it was enough to stop him in his tracks. “Please can you find me some clothes. I feel rather exposed in Sergeant Barnes’ t-shirt.”

She walked blindly back to the bathroom, closing and locking the door with trembling fingers. She just stood there for a moment, pressing her palms to the wood, her brow resting between them, and steadied her breathing.

It was done with.

Lukin was dead.

No one would ever touch her without her leave again.

She retreated to the shower, peeling off the t-shirt and the bandages, wincing as gauze tore away from healing skin. The flames from the explosion had caught her across the right side and back, and the blisters wept as she reached up to turn on the shower.

It would hurt, she knew, but she needed to wash away all traces of Lukin’s touch.

A single, bitten-off whimper escaped her throat as the water streamed down over her, sloughing off dead flesh, leaving her feeling like she’d been peeled raw. There was blood in the water, whirling around her feet, and it hurt, but she filled her hands with soap and washed every inch of herself. 

She picked up the razor that was lying beside the tub, looking at it, then lifted her hands to her head. A fresh start. What she had been was burned away. Now, she could be what she chose to be, without his control or his words.

Blackened wisps of hair joined the blood at her feet, the traces of the Winter Soldier washing away.


	19. Uncovered

None of them commented when she emerged, her scalp bare, and her body only shielded by a threadbare towel. Clothes were left at the door of the bathroom, but her skin felt too raw and painful to put anything on it at once.

She leaned on the doorframe, looking into the living room. “Sergeant,” she said quietly. “If I could have a little more of that salve, I would appreciate it.”

Steve rose from the chair he was sitting in. “Do you need a hand?”

Peggy hesitated, then nodded.

Barnes tossed him the tube of salve, and Steve followed her back to the bathroom, closing the door over. That made her breath tighten in her chest, and she knew he noticed. He opened it again, only a fraction, enough to leave her a clear way out. 

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“It’s no big deal,” he said, closing the toilet seat down and sitting on top of it. Making himself smaller, she thought gratefully. Vulnerable. Harmless. Looking up at her as he had so many years ago. “Where do you need me?”

She turned, putting her back to him. Instincts screamed that she should not turn her back on a known enemy, but she was more than simply instincts and violence. Her hands trembled as she lowered the towel, baring her back to him.

He swore, and that earned a small, gratified smile. “How the hell did you escape like this?”

“I’ve had worse,” she murmured, drawing a breath as the cool salve touched her back.

That was the wrong thing to say, and she could feel the tension in Steve’s hand. “Worse?”

She reached out to brace her hands on the edge of the sink. “Occasionally.” It was said quietly, calmly, but with enough bite for him to know not to ask more.

He smoothed the ointment across the worst of the burns, the sensation cooling and easing the worst of the pain. When she turned to face him, his eyes didn’t stray from her face once, and she lifted her right hand to touch his cheek.

“Still waiting, Captain?” she whispered.

He turned his cheek into her hand, lifting his own hand to hold her fingers there. “As long as it takes,” he whispered against her palm.

She drew her hand back reluctantly, and let him help her dress. The clothes were too big to be Barnes’, a white t-shirt and a plaid shirt that came almost halfway down her thighs, and a pair of worn and faded jeans that had been cut short to fit her. Steve’s clothing.

Warmth blossomed in her chest as she watched him do up the buttons of the shirt.

“It’s not much,” he said, “but I figured old clothes would be softer. More comfortable for you.”

“A wise decision,” she agreed.

She laid her hand on his arm before he could offer it, and let him help her back through to the living room. The papers had all been gathered up onto a table at the window, and Barnes and Romanoff were drinking coffee and talking quietly when they entered.

They both looked at her, and she recognised the expressions: people awaiting orders.

But they weren’t looking at Steve. They were looking at her.

She didn’t speak at once, sitting down carefully on the edge of the couch, but when she did speak, they were listening. 

“We need to deal with the other operatives,” she said quietly. “If there is any trace of the programme left, they may try it again. They may be successful, they may not. In either case, people will be hurt, and we cannot allow that to happen to anyone else.”

“Agreed,” Romanoff said. “Full clean up. Find all bases of operations and follow prescribed elimination procedure. Hard data to be burned. Soft data to be wiped.”

It took her a moment to realise that Romanoff was speaking in Russian, using terms she had taught that crying child decades before. She was using that language because there would be deaths, and neither of the men needed to know that.

“Yes,” she replied in the same language, folding her flesh hand around the metal one.

“What do you need us to do?” Steve asked in English.

Peggy looked at him as if she couldn’t understand him. “This isn’t your fight, Captain.”

He might have argued, in another time and place, but she was looking at him, and she knew Romanoff was too. He had no part in the world they came from. He had only touched the surface of it with his encounter with Hydra. He had no idea how dark and twisted the rabbit hole could get. Only people who had come out of that darkness knew what it was like.

“We need to do something, Carter,” Barnes said. “We’re not good at being left on the bench.”

Peggy looked across at him. She recalled their conversation from hours earlier, fragments interspersed with fatigue and pain. “Steve will train you,” she said.

“What?”

“Huh?”

“Barnes?”

Peggy nodded. “Zola designed Barnes to be a weapon,” she said. “Zola was the one who wanted him incapacitated, when he was working with Stark on something relating to it. I think Barnes could be an equal to you, Captain. What better time to see what he can be capable of?”

Barnes looked pale, sick. “Carter, I don’t think that’s a great idea. What if I’m dangerous?”

Peggy and Romanoff glanced at one another.

“Barnes, do stop for a moment and think who you’re talking to,” Peggy said patiently. “And anyway, you’re far stronger than you give yourself credit for. Steve can help you.” She hesitated, then added, “And if Stark’s son can assist you, perhaps you should approach him.”

Steve and Barnes exchanged wry looks.

“Tony’ll play ball,” Barnes said finally. “He’s a good kid.”

Peggy nodded, folding and unfolding her hands again. Good. Orders. Positions filled. Duties assigned. It was almost like being back in the formal military, rather than being taken out and fired once in a while. 

“You’re still going to take a few days,” Steve added.

Peggy didn’t argue. “Until the wounds have healed,” she agreed. “I would be compromised in the field in this condition.”

“At least a week,” Steve suggested.

She would be healed in less than two days, but she had not stopped, not for months, and for once, it would be nice to just stop, to breathe, and to be a person, rather than a one-woman crusade. “Yes,” she agreed. “One week.”

The smile that softened Steve’s features drew a smile to her face too.

It always surprised her how gentle he looked, when his face wasn’t tight with concern or worry or grief. The lines smoothed away, and he shone, and she found she couldn’t look away from him, even if she wanted to. 

His hand covered hers in her lap, and she slowly parted her fingers, letting his curl between them.

“Maybe we could go out to the park?” he offered. “Take a walk?”

The thought of doing something so simple, so natural, made her eyes prick. 

She could scarcely remember the last time she had done anything simply for pleasure. Before there was the mission, there was the Winter Soldier, and before that, there was the SSR, and before that, who was she, but a soldier waiting to find a duty?

There was only one time that she could recall, since the start of the war.

One time, when she walked into a bar, in a scarlet dress that wrapped so close around her, she might as well have been wearing nothing. She remembered that night, and remembered the way Steve’s lips had parted. He tried not to stare, and failed so miserably. 

“That would be nice,” she said, twining her fingers around his.

Metal and flesh, and he flinched from neither.

“You’ll stay here?” he asked.

She couldn’t think of any reason to refuse, even though there were probably dozens. “If Barnes doesn’t object.”

She didn’t even have to look at the man to know he was grinning. “Hey, as long as you don’t eat my cheerios, we’re good.”

She frowned, turning to him. “Cheerios?”

He stared at her. “Okay, one bowl,” he said. “I can’t have someone living under this roof who hasn’t tried cheerios.”

“Is that a good thing?” she asked, looking back at Steve.

“Just smile and nod,” Steve replied solemnly. “It’s the only thing that really works.”

Barnes just snorted with amusement, and for a moment, Peggy allowed herself to smile.


	20. Unsolicited

For the first time in almost eighty years, Peggy was reminded what it was just to be a person.

No war to fight. No enemy to face.

Two days after her arrival, when her wounds were mostly healed, they went out. Just a man and a woman who looked far younger than their ages, going out into daylight, and walking arm in arm through the snow-covered park. 

Even so, part of her was always watchful, eyes open for enemies, but that was habit. Securing the perimeter was a standard precaution in every aspect of her life from the age of fifteen, and it was a habit she knew she would never be able to break.

Her life had been spent so much in the shadows that it felt unnatural to walk in the sun with no ulterior motive but to enjoy the feeling of cool, crisp air on her skin. Her face was no longer so bruised and swollen, so people didn’t even give her a second glance.

It was strange and refreshing.

They went to a coffee shop and shared a slice of cake. He bought her something called a mocha and she found herself smiling without conscious effort. It wasn’t a mask. It wasn’t forced. It was genuine pleasure, something she had not felt in far too long.

It didn’t undo what was coming and what she and Romanoff had to do, but it was a respite, and that was a blessing she hadn’t expected.

When she wasn’t being enticed to the park or up to the roof of the building to watch the sun rise, she was spending her time going through the files from Lukin’s laboratory. It was jarring, to go from simple, quiet pleasures to the recollection of where she’d been and where she would be going.

She slept little, but that was standard procedure.

Steve tried to insist that she take his bed, but she demurred. The thought of him folding himself in half to try and sleep comfortably on the couch was ridiculous, and she had slept in far worse places.

The couch was also better for her because it was in a good position and the room was large and open with clear exits available on four sides. She wondered if he’d noticed that. It wouldn’t surprise her. Above all else, Steve Rogers was trained as a soldier.

She would prop herself in the furthest corner, feet in the direction of the door, and read by the light of the floor lamp until she was too exhausted to stay awake. When she slept, it was briefly, and light.

She knew she was not behaving as a standard human being would anymore.

She would be social and she would enjoy herself, but there would come a point where her mind insisted on preparing for the coming mission. Steve and Barnes didn’t even blink now, when she withdrew from a conversation, sometimes partway through a sentence, and retreated to the couch and her files.

It concerned them, that she was aware of, but too many years of missions and duties and roles were ingrained on her mind, and that was an impossible habit to break. Standard operating procedure. 

She wrote pages of notes as she planned, some in English, some in Russian, some written in codes and languages she couldn’t ever remember learning, but that were as familiar to her as breathing. 

Sometimes, she drifted to sleep, pen still in hand, and woke to finish a sentence that she had begun hours earlier. Sometimes, she found herself staring blindly at a file as images played over and over in her head, triggered by the name of a mission.

There were still dreams, but she had schooled herself to wake in silence. It would not do to alert the enemy to her whereabouts, not even when she was somewhere that she told herself was safe. 

It felt like a knife in the belly to know that no matter what she did, nowhere would ever feel completely safe. There were always threats. There were always suspicions. 

She curled on the couch, reading words she had read a dozen times before. She acknowledged both men as they went to their separate rooms, switching off the overhead lights and leaving her in a pool of brightness from her lamp. 

She focussed on the maps. 

She wrote lists of names and coordinates. 

She was so tired, but the work needed to be done.

She was on one knee on the floor, and it was daylight, and her enemy was arched back over her upraised knee, her left hand under his chin, holding his head back, her right pressing the blade against his throat.

“C-Carter!”

Peggy was breathing hard, and the knife in her hand was a pen, and the enemy in her grip was Barnes, her fingers bruising his throat, her knee jammed against his spine. If he tried to escape, he would snap his jaw, impale himself on the pen or crack his spine.

She recoiled, scrambling backwards across the floor, shaking.

Barnes crumpled in a heap, his breath rasping. There was blood at his throat where the pen had punctured the skin, and she could see the marks of her fingers around his jaw. 

She wanted to apologise, but the words weren’t forming, and she could see the marks and the blood, and he was just lying there, and she couldn’t recall if she had exerted enough pressure to damage his back or if she had squeezed his jaw hard enough to break it or if the wound was deep enough or…

“I’m good,” Barnes panted, rolling onto his side. “It’s okay. I’m good.”

Peggy pulled her limbs in, wrapping her arms over her head, the wall hard at her back. 

She was a weapon with no control. She was a danger to the people who were her allies. Had he not said her name, she might have killed him without even realising who he was. 

She heard the rustle of fabric on the floor, and tensed, fingers biting into her head. 

“Hey, Carter, it’s okay. I’m okay.” He was close to her. Too close. She could hurt him again if he was so close to her. “Shouldn’t have tried to put the blanket over you. My fault. All my fault.”

She shook her head under her hands.

“Carter, look at me.”

She flinched. “I’m sorry.”

“I said look at me, Carter.”

She couldn’t, not to see the marks she’d left in his skin and the blood. She felt sick, her stomach coiling into knots, and she couldn’t look at him.

“Peggy.”

He never used her name. Only Steve ever called her that.

She parted her arms, looking out guardedly at him. Barnes was right in front of her, on his knees, and he was pale and he was shaken, but a smile crooked one side of his mouth. “There’s my girl,” he said.

“Presumption, sergeant,” she whispered, and she could feel tears on her cheeks.

“Just call me Captain Presumption,” he murmured, reaching up and gently catching her wrists. His touch wasn’t quite as soft as Steve’s, but it was just as careful, as if he was afraid to hurt her. “You okay?”

She knew she should lie, but she was pressed against the wall and her face was wet and she was still trembling, her heart racing. “No.”

His fingers were curled loosely around her wrists and he slid them down to her hands, and lifted her hands up to his face. She could see the bruises she had left, black and dark and in sharp relief to his pallor. His hands were shaking as much as hers.

“I’m good,” he said softly, pressing her palms to his cheeks. “See? I’m here. I’m good.” He moved closer, just a little at a time, his legs framing her tightly-clenched ones, his head bowing until his brow rested against hers. “We’re good, Pegs. We’re good.”

She stared at him, her hands trembling at his face. "We're good," she echoed.

"Yeah," he stroked his hand along her bare arm. "All good."

She could feel the tears, hot as acid, on her cheeks, and was suddenly acutely aware of the chill in the room. "It's cold," she whispered in surprise.

He groped over behind him, catching the edge of the blanket. "Yeah," he said. "Figured you might be too. The heating’s busted. Steve’s going to call the super." He pushed himself back a few inches, then held up the blanket. "Can I?"

Peggy leaned forward from the wall. "Please."

Barnes leaned closer and wrapped the blanket around her, tucking it closed around her. To her dazed surprise, he rubbed his hands down her back and along her arms to warm her. "You need to take better care of yourself, Pegs."

She didn't know quite why she did it, but just for a moment, she let her head fall forward onto his shoulder, leaning into him as he had first leaned into her so many weeks before. She heard his breath catch and felt him tense. 

Stupid, stupid. 

She had almost killed him only minutes before. 

Of course he would be uneasy.

She started to pull back, but he made a sound of indignation.

"Where the hell d'you think you're going?" he demanded, wrapping both his arms around her and pulling her forward into the most irreverent embrace she had ever received. Surprise caught her off-balance and she fell against his chest, bracing both hands against his ribs. 

The scent of him filled her senses, nothing like Steve, wholly Barnes, sweat and blood and masculine. There was something rougher about Barnes, coarser, sharper, more like her. He had been battered by life, just like she had, and she curled her fingers into his t-shirt, her fingers dragging against his ribs. She could feel his cheek pressed against the stubble on her head.

"Atta girl, Pegs," he murmured. "Don't need to run off."

The door from the kitchen creaked, and she was halfway too her feet before she remembered where she was. Barnes was knocked back onto his haunches, and she stumbled, leaning against the wall. The blanket was hanging off her shoulder again.

Steve was in the doorway, tray in his hands. He could have come in silently. The door was open wide enough, but he’d pushed it anyway to let her know he was entering. He looked at her in concern. “You okay?”

“Rough night,” Barnes answered for her, getting up from the floor. He caught the blanket and lifted it back up, smoothing it over her left shoulder. He offered her a quick smile. “All okay now, though.”

Peggy nodded, her mouth dry. She could see the damage clearly now he was standing in daylight. He was still bruised and the blood from his neck had trickled to pool in the hollow of his collarbone, dark and red. Not terminal, but visible and caused by her hand.

Steve crossed the floor to the table, setting down the tray with the teapot and teacup she knew he’d only bought for her. He glanced at Barnes, and she saw the way his brow furrowed, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to, really. What had happened was apparent in the hand-shaped bruises on Barnes’ jaw.

“You want something to eat?” he offered instead, looking back at her.

“Cheerios,” Barnes said. “You still haven’t tried them.”

She tried to smile, but the expression wouldn’t come. “If you insist.”

“I do.”

Peggy remained where she was, as if rooted to the spot until he headed for the door. He glanced at Steve, nodded once, then closed the door behind him. Peggy didn’t know what the wordless exchange meant. Perhaps reassurance for Steve. Perhaps affirmation that all was not as well as they hoped. 

She walked stiffly over to the table. 

Every step felt as though she was walking on broken glass. After the days of respite and something close to happiness, it hurt. She collapsed into the seat, propped her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. 

Steve was beside her in a heartbeat. He dragged the other chair along the floor to sit down beside her, the noise an indication of his intent before he laid his arm around her shoulders. It still made her flinch, but only for a split-second before she leaned into him. 

There was something comforting in the steady beat of his heart in her ear, and she lowered her arms to press her clenched fists to her chest, keep them where they could do no harm. His arms were around her, and he touched a kiss to the top of her bowed head.

“When I came back,” he murmured, stroking his hand comfortingly up and down her flesh arm through the blanket, “Buck was in a bad way. He didn’t believe it was really me. After everything that had happened, he thought he was going nuts. That I had to be a hallucination.” His chest rose and fell under her cheek. “He did something like this too.”

Peggy said nothing, staring at the way the light was playing on the polished china of the tea set. It shone.

“It’ll get better, Peggy. I promise.”

“How can you know that?” Her voice was rasping with unshed tears.

He cupped her cheek, turning her face up to his. “Because you’re the strongest person I know,” he said. “Stronger than me and Buck and Natasha combined. You’re strong enough to beat this.” He stroked his thumb along her cheek, brushing away the tears. “And when you need someone to lean on, I’m going to be right there with you.”


	21. Unearthed

New York and St. Petersburg were cold, but they had nothing on the heights of the Urals. 

Even inside the car, Peggy’s breath was curling in mist from her lips, freezing in sparkling points on the fur of her collar. Turning the engine off felt like a suicidal move. She could remember engines seizing up because of the cold, metal cracking.

Romanoff shifted in the passenger seat, gazing out through the windscreen. “Don’t worry,” she murmured. “I have it on good authority that this kind of engine is freeze-resistant.”

Peggy didn’t even glance at her, but she wasn’t surprised that Romanoff knew what she was thinking. After all, she had trained the girl in every way, from covert operations, to weapons, to vehicles. Her lessons, she thought with chagrin, appeared to have stuck. Or perhaps scarred was a better word. She was hardly a kind teacher, and some scars wouldn’t fade.

“Old habits,” she replied, tapping her fingertips on the steering wheel. 

Outside of the car, the snow was gusting in feathery whorls, a mild storm compared to the one that greeted them, as they slipped over the border from Kazakhstan. That was almost four days earlier, and the trail had led them higher and higher into the mountains.

It was nowhere that Peggy could remember coming before, but from the grim set of Romanoff’s face, she remembered the area. She said nothing about it, which Peggy took to mean that the association was personal, not something that would affect them in a business capacity.

They were half-hidden in the forest, just off the road, and ahead of them, somewhere nearby, there was an entrance to the bunker they were looking for. It was well-concealed, and Natasha had pointed out some of the more high-tech sensors that her kit had picked up.

Peggy still felt uncomfortable with their tools.

The car, the camouflage plating that shielded them, the panels to mask their heat signatures, the digital scanner that was so small Romanoff could hold it in her palm. All of it was provided by Tony Stark.

Barnes insisted they take it all, and Steve had added his voice in support.

If they were going to fight a battle, they needed all the best resources, and Stark was willing to provide that.

They’d come close to arguing about it, and finally, Peggy had climbed out of the window and sat on the fire escape, breathing in the chilly night air. Steve sat down on the window ledge inside the room, and neither of them spoke.

She had her phone and just as she did when words were too difficult to say out loud, she typed it into the phone and pressed send.

[I killed Howard Stark.]

She raised her eyes to the sky and stared at the faint specks of light she could see there until her phone buzzed in her hand. She reluctantly turned it over, and flicked open the message from Steve.

[I know.]

It was both a relief and a kick in the gut to know that he knew.

[How long have you known?]

He swung his legs over the window ledge and ducked under the half-open window to turn and face her. She didn’t look at him, and he folded his hands between his knees.

“Before I knew who you were,” he said quietly. “I knew what happened to him. Natasha told me about the Winter Soldier. It wasn’t a huge leap.”

Peggy remembered closing her eyes, her hand so tight around the phone that it hurt. “Oh.” It was all she could think of to say. He leaned over, laying his hand on her shoulder, but for once, she didn’t want the comfort. She didn’t deserve it.

She heard him release a soft, sad sigh, then slip back in to the apartment.

She stayed out there on the fire escape until he switched off the main light, the unspoken sign that he was going to bed, and when she curled up on the sofa, she buried her face in her ice-cold hands and wept.

She had slipped away in the morning before he woke, leaving a brief letter in an envelope on the table to summarise the mission. It was too much to think about facing him, knowing that he’d always been aware what she was capable of. 

She straightened up in the seat. “There.”

Romanoff didn’t even ask, turning her head in the same direction as Peggy’s. 

In a shadow of a crevice that looked just like a dozen others, a flicker of light was visible.

Romanoff’s console buzzed and she looked down. “Looks like they’re opening the door for visitors,” she murmured. “Shall we?”

Peggy shrugged out of the thick furs she was wearing. Each of them had a camo-suit that would mirror their surroundings and mask their heat signatures. She drew up the hood until her whole face was covered. Fine mesh, so fine it was almost transparent, shielded her eyes, and she nodded to Romanoff.

A convoy of armoured vehicles were approaching.

The fact that the facilities were still in use didn’t come as a shock. The Soviet states had always had their fair share of enemies, and now, some of those very states were the enemies they were trying to subdue. Falling back on old resources was a habit they were very good at.

She took point, moving slowly through the whirling snow towards the edge of the road.

The weather meant the vehicles weren’t moving as quickly as the might have been. She was able to roll beneath one in a flurry of powered snow, and use Stark’s magnetic clamps to hook herself to the bottom of the vehicle before it passed her by.

She didn’t check if Romanoff followed.

The fumes from the engine were oily, but she had long since learned to regulate her breathing, to control herself in every situation. Her throat tickled, but she pressed her lips together, smothering any coughs as the vehicle rumbled into the hidden compound. Snow-covered road gave way to concrete and metal.

She held on, until the vehicle came to a halt, and the passengers emerged. She watched boots moving, this way and that. The loops of the magnetic grapples were tight under her knees and around her hands, and her arms ached with the effort of holding herself up.

It felt like hours, but was probably less than twenty minutes, when the lights finally dimmed, and she could lower herself to the floor.

A glance around told her the chamber was empty. It was large, a natural cavern, but had been floored with concrete. It looked like it was the storage vault for all the vehicles, dozens of them parked side by side.

She slipped out from between the tyres, rising slowly. 

“Bigger than I remembered,” Romanoff’s voice was a low murmur in her ear. The comms were working, then. 

Peggy nodded, half to herself, and moved towards the nearest patch of shadow. It always felt better to remain unseen than in direct light, even when disguised with the best tech known to modern science. Romanoff was already there and barely flinched when Peggy appeared at her side and touched her shoulder.

“Where?”

Romanoff hesitated, then put forefinger and thumb around Peggy’s metal wrist and moved forwards, leading her in the pitch black. 

For all that she wanted to put the Winter Soldier behind her, Peggy could appreciate the way that Romanoff carried herself, the way she must have carried herself for all those years. Every movement was sparing, no waste of energy or motion. 

They moved liked shadows.

There was no other description for it.

Soundless and unseen in the darkness, they slipped by guards and engineers alike.

Their target was the archive. It was only rumour and legend, but the paper trail dating back as far as the 1940s led back to this place. It was nicknamed Peter’s cave, which understated just how vast the complex was.

Romanoff’s hand at her chest stopped her within sight of a plain metal door that looked like it had been salvaged from a submarine. The chamber they were in was a crossover point for a series of smaller caves, and there were electric lights everywhere. 

“In there,” Romanoff breathed.

Peggy nodded slowly. “Numbers?”

Romanoff pressed four fingers to Peggy’s chest as a group of technicians hurried by, arguing heatedly. Peggy silently pressed her arm against Romanoff’s belly. Old code. Familiar code. Armed? A fist pressed to her chest. Yes. 

Four.

Not so dangerous.

But then, the facility was apparently much larger than it had been, so there may be more.

“Cam,” Romanoff whispered. 

It was directly above them, giving them a perfect blindspot to wait. Peggy glanced up and watched it moving. She counted under her breath. Thirty second sweeps, covering each of the entrances and the door with one rotating camera. She squinted at the camera, then smiled. Old-fashioned, with a limited frame capacity.

She tapped her fingertip against Romanoff’s arm six times. Six second window for them to get through the door. More than enough.

Another group of technicians was approaching from the other direction, only three this time, laden down with paper files. Romanoff pressed a hand between Peggy’s shoulders, then she was gone, moving forward.

With her camo suit, the creature known as the Black Widow was all but invisible to anyone who was not looking for her, hidden in a stripe of shadow. Peggy watched, impressed, as Romanoff deftly made the foremost of the technicians stumble. 

His comrades, caught in his wake, went crashing down too. The files scattered everywhere, and in the furore as they snarled at each other, none of them noticed the handle of the archive door moving slowly. She must have oiled it, Peggy thought, because it moved soundlessly.

As soon as they gathered up their papers and were out of earshot, Peggy looked up at the tracking camera. It passed the door and she ran across the hall in three quick steps. She and Romanoff were through and the door closed behind them in seconds.

Unlike the halls, the archive was brilliantly illuminated, and their entrance had not gone unnoticed.

“Left,” Peggy decided, and felt Romanoff sweep right as the guards moved towards them. Her eyes flicked along them, some at the main desk, others who had been standing in ranks along the units of shelves, as if there was something very much worth stealing.

Fifteen.

Considerably more than four. 

This was familiar. This was what she had trained to do. From her teenage years, this was the role she knew. The soldier. The spy. The infiltrator. The renegade. She pushed her hood back and smiled over at Romanoff, who had drawn down her hood too.

“Shall we?”

Romanoff’s lips curled up. “I think so,” she agreed, raising her guns.


	22. Unfold

The archive was secure.

Romanoff was occupied restraining the survivors, while Peggy scanned through the computer, searching for the location of the files they had come for. 

There were hundreds filing cabinets with hard copies of documents considered too explosive or dangerous to be kept at a readily-accessible facility. Top secret documents. Records of human experimentation. Scientific programmes with terrible results. Cover ups.

She didn't know the file name, but she could recall glimpses of records from a hundred different occasions, and her hands darted across the keyboard, entering identification codes in four languages, bringing up searches rapidly.

When she found the one she was looking for, she vaulted the desk and ran. The room was long and wide, but it was laid out well, and the cabinet she was looking for was exactly where the grid said it should be. A crowbar and elbow grease cracked open the analogue padlock, and she flicked through folder after folder, her heart pounding.

“Company!” Romanoff’s voice was sharp in her ear.

Peggy kept flicking. “How far?”

“Heading this way,” Natasha replied. “At the door in thirty.”

Peggy cursed under her breath. “Mask up,” she said. “Head into the racks.”

Romanoff didn’t reply, but Peggy knew she would obey the order. Romanoff was a trained soldier above all else. She would take her order and she would obey it to the letter, no matter what was asked of her. 

She reached into the front of her suit, pulling out her own mask. Too many years of fighting and facing enemies who were more than willing to use gas agents made her wary. It sealed around her face, and she returned to the files.

Romanoff must have jammed the door, because she could hear the pounding of metal on metal. Her heart rate was spiking, so she focussed, breathing slowly, calmly, bringing it back to a steadier level. Battlefield nerves helped no one. 

Under her fingers, she found the file she was looking for. It slipped neatly into the pack on her back.

“Target acquired,” she snapped, finger to her ear. “Numbers?”

“At least twenty,” Romanoff’s voice was a breath in her ear. “Shadow dance?”

Peggy smiled grimly. “Naturally.”

The door was being pushed in, but she raised her guns calmly, one in each hand, and started shooting out the bulbs of the lamps. On the far side of the room, she heard the corresponding crack of Romanoff’s guns, dropping the room into darkness. 

The only light came from the hallway beyond the open door, and the flickering torches on the uniform of the soldiers pouring in from the outside. There were yells for surrender, and the rattle and hiss of the predicted canisters of gas to render them helpless.

It was almost disappointing, and Peggy heard Romanoff smother a chuckle.

Peggy sank into a crouch, setting a handful of mini-explosives rolling along the floor. 

“Ten clicks,” she murmured.

She rose, darting further back into the shadows, and scrambling lightly up onto the ladders framing the filing units. She counted under her breath, and on ten, the scatter of explosives sparked and snapped like gun fire.

Some of the soldiers made the mistake of moving closer, and she could see the flicker of their torches. Left breast, three fingers to the left and above the heart. They were not in combat uniform, not expecting battle in their bunker, so no body armour. 

Two men within range. She braced her weight on her left arm and leaned out, aiming on instincts honed to razor acuity and fired two shots. Two of the torches dropped like stones.

Before they could pinpoint her, she leapt lightly down from the ladder and slunk around the next row of cabinets, keeping low. The soldiers were quieter now, listening, trying to find them. She heard the rattle of more of the detonators on the concrete floor.

“Ten clicks,” Romanoff murmured.

Peggy moved slowly along the aisle between the rows of cabinets, her back to the metal, and held her breath, firing at another torch in time with the detonator exploding. Among the bursts of explosive, she could hear twin shots from Romanoff’s handguns. 

At least five down, then.

“Bottleneck?” Romanoff breathed. “Or scatter?”

Peggy considered their options.

The key parts of the mission were getting out with the files and alive. 

The door was still open, with over a dozen men between it and them. She slipped a hand within her suit, taking measure of the weapons they had left. There would be more people outside. Those ones could be dealt with easily, but in a confined space, with the only entrance blocked, there was no option of grenades.

Her thumb skimmed over a round device.

“Scatter,” she breathed. “Flash. On my mark in three, two, one.”

She hurled the flash grenade in the direction of the door, then hunkered down low, hands over her ears, eyes pressed closed against her knees. Even through her hands, the sound made her ears ache.

She was on her feet and running before the echoes of the sound had even faded.

Romanoff must have encountered soldiers on her side first. She heard a cry of pain. Her own path was almost clear, until she emerged from between the aisles. A soldier was flailing around blindly. She took him out with a kick to the throat. He folded, choking, and she followed it with a kick to his head.

The click of a pistol trigger made her hit the floor, just in time to avoid a gunshot. She leapfrogged over her first victim to snatch the barrel of the gun of the second in her left hand. A punch upwards into the elbow made the bone crack. The shooter howled.

They were very good at drawing attention to one another, she noted. She jerked the man around by the hand to use him as a shield, as another of his half-blinded compatriots fired towards her. A kick took out another who was grasping at her legs.

It was all familiar.

The fact their well-armed assailants outnumbered them meant nothing. The Winter Soldier was lethal on her own, but with the Black Widow at her side, the twenty were reduced to nothing in moments.

Peggy dusted some dirt from her sleeve as Romanoff stepped lightly over the last of the soldiers. He was lying in a foetal ball, clutching his groin, his eyes still streaming from the flash grenade. 

“The files?”

Peggy motioned to the slim pack on her back. “Safe.”

Romanoff’s expression was invisible behind her gasmask, but there was a gleam in her eyes that looked like satisfaction. “Cover up, then,” she said. “We have a ride to get to.”

Peggy pulled the camo hood down over her mask.

They both knew it wouldn’t be much use now, not when the soldiers had been shouting into their radios for back-up and insisting there were at least half a dozen assailants. Still, every little bit helped.

Peggy took a last, deep breath, before they ran.

The only small mercy about the place was that the main controls for the doors were grids in the vast entrance chamber. No control room to break into. No computers to hack. Just good old-fashioned engineering between them and the great outdoors. And a couple of dozen soldiers, armed to the teeth.

It was clear that no one had expected them to escape the funnel of the archive, not with so many sent to stop them. The armed units were more than a little surprised when Romanoff raced by, snatching up one of their machine guns, raking a furrow in their defences. 

Peggy came in as a shadow behind her, headshots dropping half a dozen in rapid succession. She followed Romanoff’s lead through the winding corridors, both of them leaping back as gunfire cut across the junction in front of them.

“We need to get down that way,” Romanoff hissed.

“That won’t be a problem.” Peggy snatched a grenade from her belt. She unpinned it and hurled it around the corner with her left arm as hard as she could. She pulled Romanoff down to the floor, crouching over her, as fire and body parts erupted from the hall. Loose rock rattled down on them from above.

Just to be sure, she straightened up and took another grenade, following through to finish anyone who was left behind. She covered Romanoff again and felt the younger woman tense beneath her.

The only sound was the crackle of flames.

“Go,” Peggy said.

The main entrance chamber of the facility lay ahead. Peggy recognised it from the brief drive through it, even from a different angle. It was wide and it was open, and it was exactly the kind of battle terrain she hated with a passion. 

They were pinned down in seconds, on either side of one of the support columns. Not trapped, persay, but not quite free to reach the door, since their enemies kept on staying just out of shot like good little snipers. 

Romanoff was using the machine gun as effectively as her handguns. For every shot that came her way, there was the sound of an impact of metal in flesh from the other side. 

Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. “Your arm. Electric?”

“Technically.”

Romanoff hissed through her teeth. “Sorry about this.”

Before Peggy could ask, a device was hurled out from Romanoff’s side of the column. Peggy had a beat of warning before the EMP went off. Pain shot through her nerve endings, almost driving her to her knees, and every joint and link in her arm contracted then locked.

High above them, the lights brightened to nuclear brilliance then burst one by one. Peggy saw Romanoff move, felt the hand wrap onto her flesh arm, and drag her in the darkness. They were running blind and she had to trust the younger woman to guide then, her own mind sharp with pain, every breath coming ragged and raw. 

“You good?” Romanoff called back.

“Not dead,” Peggy gasped.

People were firing behind them. Some were yelling for lights. Others were running after them in the darkness, torches bobbing. Romanoff swung around, fired. Several cried out. Romanoff caught her wrist and they were running again.

She could hear Romanoff counting under her breath and slammed into the younger woman when she stopped short.

“The control.” Romanoff shoved Peggy hard ahead of her. “I’ll get it. Doors twenty steps ahead.”

Peggy knew a tactical choice when she saw one. It would take her longer to reach the doors, staggering as she was. She broke into a run, her metal arm juddering back to life as the circuits rebooted. Fresh pain shot down her spine, almost felling her, but the doors were creaking open. She could smell the night air over the gun smoke and flames.

She turned back at the doorway, staring into the half-light cast by the moon. Natasha was running towards her. Beyond her, soldiers were swarming. Some were at the controls already.

“Go! Get out of here!” Romanoff screamed in her ear. “They’re going to close the doors! Get the files out! Go!”

Peggy was absolutely still for a moment.

The girl believed she would be left behind. The Winter Soldier would have left her behind. An asset who was not capable of removing themselves from a situation was worth nothing. The Winter Soldier would have left her to die.

She threw herself between the doors as they started to close, bracing her left shoulder against one and her left hand against the other. Good god, it hurt! She locked her elbow and shoulder, pushing back with all the strength she had. It was enough, but only barely and she could feel her arm starting to buckle.

“Get a bloody move on!” she howled through the doorway.

Inside, they were firing.

Her arm was cracking, and she felt the dull impact of a bullet in her side. Another. Her leg.

The pain brought the world into a strange sort of focus.

She saw Romanoff skid out on her knees beneath her arm. She saw her arm fold like foil. She saw the doors slam closed. She saw the world tilt sideways. And she saw snow, white and soft and so close to her face she could almost taste it.

Peggy smiled faintly as her world softened and dulled around her.

She always did like snow.


	23. Unfailing

Peggy didn't know how Romanoff got her to the car. 

Her mind was white with pain. She could feel the leather of the interior against her back, and taste metal on her breath. A sharp slap to the face made her lash out instinctively with her right, her left arm crippled and limp by her side. 

She blinked, squinting.

Romanoff was in the driving seat, her hands moving on the controls.

"You need to stop the bleeding," she said. "I need to get us out of here."

Bleeding.

Yes.

Stop the bleeding.

She looked down at herself. She was slouched in the seat, too low, her bloody leg folded up under the dash. The blood was dark on the camo suit. 

"Tampon," she said.

"What?" Romanoff didn't even look at her, steering the car out over the road. Over, Peggy noticed. Hovering. Interesting. Picking up speed too. Without the need for caution on the icy roads, they would easily outdistance the following vehicles.

"Tampon," Peggy repeated, pushing herself up a little straighter. Her right hand was shaking as she tore at the camo suit, revealing the wound low on the back of her thigh. Through and through. Possibly directly through muscle. Definitely missed major arteries, but still bleeding heavily. "Got one?"

Romanoff reached over blindly, flipping down the glove compartment. There was a small lady's clutchbag there, out of place beside the grenades and flick knife. Peggy pulled it out. 

There were thankfully two small packets.

She was breathing hard, her vision black around the edges, as she tore open the first with her teeth. "I'll need a hand," she whispered. 

Romanoff’s eyes flicked to her hand, then back to the forest opening out ahead of them. “Take the wheel,” she snapped, releasing it, as she tilted sideways and snatched the tube from Peggy’s hand. Peggy caught the wheel, gripping it tightly, and braced herself, as Romanoff crammed the cotton wadding into the gaping hole in her thigh.

Fireworks blazed behind her eyes.

The car swerved wildly and Peggy had to jerk the wheel hard back.

“Fuck, Romanoff!”

“Eyes on the road, soldier,” Romanoff retorted, bracing herself on Peggy’s left thigh and snatching the second one.

The second was as bad as the first. 

Peggy crumpled down in the seat, gasping, as soon as Romanoff sat up and grabbed the wheel again. She folded her arm across her chest, sliding her hand under the camo suit. The second wound was more severe. Her chest was thick with blood, and she groped for the bullet hole.

Deep. Bullet still lodged. Requiring extraction. Cauterisation.

Peggy curled her fingers, pressing them into the wound to stem the bleeding. Her fingers were cold and it hurt like hell. She could taste metal and pressed her eyes closed. “How are you with surgery?” she whispered through clenched teeth.

She didn’t need to open her eyes to know Romanoff was watching her. “That bad?”

Peggy laughed hoarsely, and immediately regretted it. “Bullet between the ribs. I heal fast, but not with metal in there.”

Romanoff was silent and Peggy could hear the faint beep of her scanner.

“Five minutes,” she said. Her arm crossed over Peggy’s body and Peggy felt the seatbelt lock in place. “Don’t move.”

Even if she wanted to, it was hardly and option. Her head fell back against the headrest. She felt the car jump forward as it accelerated, but the blood rushing through her head, throbbing in her arms and chest and leg, was too much.

Pain brought her back to consciousness again. 

She hissed between her teeth, her body clenching. 

The air around her was ice cold, cutting with every breath. She was lying on an uneven surface. Forest floor, her mind supplied, on top of a sheet of insulation foil. On her right side, in the light of the headlamps of the car. 

“Shit.”

She opened her eyes weakly, squinting at Romanoff who was kneeling over her, knife in hand.

In another lifetime, she would have disarmed the girl easily, but now, she felt weak as a child.

“Mm?”

Romanoff pressed her hand against Peggy’s bare ribs, holding her down. “I hoped you’d stay under until I was done,” she admitted. “Hold still.”

It was going against every instinct - both the Winter Soldier’s and Peggy Carter’s - to allow a trained assassin to pin her down without fighting, especially knowing that the assassin was about to stick a knife between her ribs. Peggy awkwardly twisted up her right arm, pressing her hand to her mouth, and nodded.

The knife was more painful than the bullet it was trying to retrieve.

Peggy’s teeth cut hard into her hand and her mouth was wet with blood.

“Got it,” Romanoff finally said.

Peggy let her hand dropped away from her mouth. Her lips were wet and cold and her chest was heaving. “Seal it,” she whispered. “It’ll heal.”

Romanoff didn’t question her.

That caught what was left of her attention.

She wasn’t speaking as the Winter Soldier, but Romanoff moved to obey without hesitation.

Peggy brought her hand back to her mouth, but Romanoff got there first. A folded band of leather - a belt? - pressed to her lips, and she bit down gratefully, closing her eyes. She’d had wounds cauterized before, and it was never a pleasant sensation.

“Don’t move,” Romanoff warned again.

The pain was enough to make Peggy black out.

When she came around, she was back in the car, wrapped in the insulation foil and thick layers of furs. Her seat had been tilted back and she could feel make-shift bandages on both of her wounds. A bottle was pressed into her hand.

“Drink,” Romanoff said.

Peggy moved automatically, draining half the bottle. Her ribs pulled and she caught a breath between her teeth. “Damn.”

“You’ll live?”

Peggy pressed her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She felt light-headed. It might have been blood-loss or shock. She wasn’t entirely sure which. “Hopefully,” she said faintly. She set the bottle down in her lap, keeping her fingers tightly around it.

Her left arm was still sending flickers of electricity sparking through her. Romanoff had bound it up neatly, so it wasn’t just limp by Peggy’s side, but it was damaged, and that was bad. It was connected to her in ways Peggy preferred not to think about. 

She could feel the familiar sharp ripples on her nerve endings that came before it shorted out when it was damaged. It had only happened a few times that she could remember, most recently after Steve cracked the casing when they fought.

Once, there were a dozen technicians who would pin her down and rewire whatever needed rewired. They resorted to metal bands when straps were no longer enough. They would fix what needed to be fixed.

Now, all those technicians were dead or gone and her arm was damaged.

They weren’t just out of range of help.

There was no help to be had.

There was no need to add to Romanoff’s concerns.

The car was moving fast, high enough above the ground to be flying, but low enough to avoid anti-aircraft radars. Romanoff wanted them both to get to safety, and she was going as fast as she could. It would do no good to either of them to make her go faster, and increase the risk of capture or collision.

Survival was a luxury for people such as her, she knew. She had been lucky too many times already. The only saving grace was that they had succeeded. Natasha would get the files to Steve, and he would know what to do with them. He would have something to keep him occupied, when she was gone. He always needed something to keep him occupied.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Romanoff said.

Peggy turned her head towards the girl, opening her eyes. “What? Faint?”

“Hold the doors.”

Peggy smiled tiredly, closing her eyes for a moment. She drew a breath, gathering a little of the strength she had left. “Of course I did,” she murmured. Her eyelids felt heavy, but she forced them open again. “Leave no man behind, Romanoff.”

Romanoff pulled her eyes from the windscreen and looked at her. She didn’t need to speak. It was clear in her expression: that’s not what you taught me. She turned back to the windscreen and looked out, her gloved hands tight around the steering wheel.

“I might not have saved you,” she said quietly. “If it was the other way around.”

Peggy let her head fall back, smiling. Her world was drawing into that quiet, dark place, and the pain was being pulled away. “Perhaps,” she said. “But then, you might not have agreed to come with me at all.” Her eyes were closed, and she couldn’t open them again. “Why did you?”

“Come with you?”

“Mm.”

Natasha was quiet for a moment. “I wanted to see if Rogers was right about you.”

“And?”

Romanoff snorted. “Yeah. You’re as nuts as he is.”

Peggy almost laughed as the world faded out around her.


	24. Unbroken

Machines were beeping and whirring.

That was the first thing that crept into Peggy’s consciousness.

Somewhere nearby, there were machines.

She took stock of her surroundings as much as she could without opening her eyes or letting the pattern of her breathing change. Cool, but indoors. Metal surfaces judging by the whirr of air conditioning and the circulation of the air around her. Sterile. Clean.

It didn’t feel like a hospital. 

It lacked the scent of cleaning product and death. 

She couldn’t hear the sound of anyone breathing nearby, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t being watched through monitors or glass walls. It had happened before. It would inevitably happen again. 

She was also facedown and naked on a smooth, firm surface, a sheet draped lightly over her.

How funereal, she thought. 

The pain was less, though, which was good. 

The ache in her leg was dull, and her ribs were tight, but it wasn’t the mind-blanking agony it had been before. That pleasure and privilege lingered around the point where her false arm joined her body. It was still far better than it had been, and that made her open her eyes, frowning in confusion.

Normally, when her arm shorted, there was no choice but to await repair, but in the middle of Russia in the middle of winter, surrounded by enemies, with no known qualified techs, how on earth had Romanoff found someone to stabilise her damaged arm?

She squinted to her left. 

Her arm was laid out on an extended panel from the surface she was lying on.

It almost looked intact.

She curled her fingers slowly, watching them.

Somewhere, a sensor pinged.

Wherever she was, they would know she was awake and aware.

Pointless to play otherwise.

She pushed herself up on her right arm, looked around. Her eyes came into focus, and she almost recoiled on instinct. A laboratory. Metal surfaces. Polished. Shining. Like every other lab that she had been contained in.

Her chest ached, her heart clenching, and she hissed through her teeth as she struggled to sit up on the lined treatment table. Modern. Expensive. Hi-tech. Designed for the comfort of the occupant as well as practicality. Not Soviet.

She sat there for a long moment, trying to catch her breath. 

Her chest was hurting much more than she had expected, and not just where the gunshot had penetrated. Her heart felt like it was labouring more than usual. She rubbed the fingers of her right hand against her sternum, wincing. She could recall, vaguely, the sensation that followed a cardiac arrest. It was not dissimilar. 

“Good morning, Agent Carter.” She almost jumped from the treatment table, startled by the firm male British voice. “Please remain where you are. You shall have company shortly.”

Peggy stared around. Speakers. There. Yes.

She pushed herself off the table, her legs shaking under her, and stumbled towards the wall to peer up at the speaker. Very modern. High end. Nothing she had ever seen before. How curious. Like much of the lab, it was custom-made.

She turned on the spot, slowly, awkwardly. Her left leg ached, protesting the sudden use and she looked down to see bandages wrapped around her thigh. Good. No more blood. 

Beneath her feet, the floor wasn’t icy cold like those of Lukin’s laboratory. Not metal there, or if metal, then maintained at a standard heat. She padded across the floor towards a bright sheet that looked like it might be a window.

The British voice was still talking at her, indicating she should remain where she was, return to the treatment table, please sit down so progress can be confirmed. 

She ignored it, touching her fingers to the glass.

A window.

Yes. 

Bright because sunlight was shining straight in. She lifted her hand to shield her eyes, squinting out. The astonishment stole her breath. She recognised the city. She had been there before and it spread out before her in all directions.

New York.

Somehow, Romanoff had managed to get them back to New York.

Her left leg gave way beneath her, and she pressed both hands against the glass to keep from falling. She slid downwards, landing on her knees on the floor, and her head fell forward, her brow resting against the glass. 

Behind her, a door hissed open.

She didn’t even have the energy to turn.

“Jarvis, what the hell? I told you to keep her on the bed.”

“I’m afraid she did not wish to cooperate, sir.”

Peggy managed to tilt her head, looking over her shoulder.

It was like looking at a ghost. 

She turned back to the window, her breath tight in her lungs.

Running footsteps. “Is she okay?” A breathless voice. A beat. “Shit! Carter!”

She recognised the voice, and when the warm, rough hands touched her, she recognised them too. No need to fight. Safe.

Barnes.

He picked her up as if she weighed nothing, one arm under her knees, the other behind her back. Her head lolled against his, and she could feel his heart racing against her arm.

“Barnes?”

“So your eyes are working,” Barnes set, setting her gently back on the treatment table. He picked up the abandoned sheet, wrapping it around her, and caught her flesh hand between his, rubbing it to warm it. He searched her face. “How you feeling?”

She looked up at him. She had to look at him, because looking anywhere else reminded her of places long gone, and men long dead. Stark. They had brought her to Stark.

“How long was I out?” she asked in a whisper, curling her fingers around his. “Romanoff. Is Romanoff safe?”

“She’s better than you are right now,” Barnes replied. He pressed his hand against her cheek, staring at her so intently she wondered what she’d missed. “Are you okay? How do you feel? All good? Functioning? We didn’t know when you’d be up.”

“Barnes,” she whispered. “How long?”

He hesitated. “Five days. We got lucky.”

“Five days?”

Barnes nodded. “You went into some kind of shock,” he said. “Arm went haywire and you went into cardiac arrest.” He hesitated, then said quietly, “Nat had to pack you in ice in the trunk to keep you intact to get back to us.”

Ice.

Again.

No wonder her chest was hurting.

Her head fell forward to rest against his chest.

“Russians and their hobbies,” she whispered. “One day, I’ll meet one who doesn’t turn me into a human ice cube.”

She felt his chest rise and fall with a helpless chuckle, and his hand curled over the back of her head, stroking down her nape. She closed her eyes, letting his warmth ebb through her. It was comforting. Soothing. He was. Solid and warm and real.

“Question.” The other man spoke, and she pressed her eyes closed tighter, wishing she was anywhere but in his presence. “Scientific interest: how did the engineers maintain your arm before, when it’s hooked into your nervous system?”

“Metal clamps,” she said quietly. 

“Which would hold it still, yeah, but how would they prevent the currents from shorting through…”

“Tony, it wasn’t to hold her arm still,” Barnes said quietly.

Peggy shivered.

“Ah. So that’s why the Cap wanted to hold…” Stark trailed off. “Well, could have used that information before, but hey. What can you expect from two senior citizens who think science is switching on a TV?”

Peggy opened her eyes and turned to look at the son of a man who had been a friend. He looked so like his father that it hurt, but unlike his father, he was staying out of arm’s reach, and he was watching her with open suspicion.

She looked away, pushing herself up from Barnes.

“Where’s Steve?” she asked.

Barnes hesitated. “He’s resting,” he said. “He didn’t want you strapped down so he… held you through the procedures.”

Peggy felt ill. “He’s hurt?”

“He’s bruised up,” Barnes reassured her. “Nothing we haven’t seen before.” She must have looked at him sceptically, because he held up his hands. “I’ll go fetch him. He’s fine, I promise.” He looked from her to Stark. “You’ll be okay?”

She didn’t know if the question was for her or for Stark.

“What am I? Six?” Stark snorted. His tone was sharp, but she could hear the cracks. “Go fetch Captain Grandpa if you want.”

Barnes patted Peggy’s right knee gently. “I’ll be back in a second.”

When he left the room, silence settled like dust.

Peggy curled her right hand into the sheet.

“I should check your arm,” Stark said abruptly. “Never used tech like it before.”

She lowered the sheet and extended her left arm. The moment his fingers touched the surface, she knew Romanoff had made the right call. He was an engineer. He knew machines. He knew where the pressure points were. He knew exactly how to hold her false limb.

She turned her head just enough to look at him through her lashes.

His eyes were completely focussed on her arm, but she could see the rigid set of his shoulders, and knew that he was as aware of her as she was of him. He leaned closer to her arm, gripping a screwdriver between his teeth, and removed a series of plates, setting them down, then took the screwdriver from his mouth and started making adjustments.

“So,” he said finally, “you were the assassin who killed my parents.”

A bolt of energy shot up her arm, and she didn’t know if that or his words made her flinch.

“Unfortunately,” she said. His fingers tightened on the screwdriver. She hesitated, lost for what she was meant to say. “I’m awfully sorry about that.”

Stark turned and looked at her. “‘Awfully sorry’?” he echoed. 

Peggy lowered her eyes, mortified. What was one meant to say in the face of a victim’s child?

Stark snorted, slowly shaking his head. “‘Awfully sorry’, she says,” he said under his breath as he bent back over her arm. “Do you want some tea and crumpets with that Stiff Upper Lip?”

She looked back at him, startled.

Stark raised his eyes to hers. “What? You thought I’d be on a vengeance trip?” He shook his head. “Uncle Buck and the Cap’d kill me.” He returned his attention to her arm. “They told me what happened to you.”

“I do wish they would stop doing that,” she said quietly, lowering her eyes. 

“Mm.” He picked up some intricate tools she didn’t recognise. “Don’t get me wrong, if that side of you comes out to play again, I’ll kill you.” He smiled at her and it didn’t reach his eyes. “Not at hand-to-hand, of course. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

“Quite justified,” she said after just a moment too long staring at him. “Thank you.”

“For playing with your arm?” He shrugged. “I like machines,” he said.

“No,” she corrected. “For the other part. They wouldn’t. Someone needs to be willing, in case anything goes wrong.”

Stark set down his tools, and looked at her properly, a line furrowing his brow. “Huh.”

She looked away from him when the door opened. The relief at the sight of Steve was like a rush of energy through her body. There were bruises on his face and he looked exhausted, but he was there and he was looking at her as if she was a miracle. 

Perhaps she was.

Perhaps they both were.

Once, he’d thought her dead. This time, she’d thought herself dead.

Now, they were both alive, facing each other, and she had never been happier to see anyone in her life.

Before Stark could replace the covers on her arm, she pushed off the table, and she and Steve crashed together in the middle of the room. His arms were around her, keeping her from falling, and she reached up with her right hand, pulling his head down and kissing him for the first time. It didn’t feel like a risk or a weakness or a danger. 

His arms tightened around her, and he lifted her bodily from the floor, holding her against his chest. He was kissing her too, and his hair was soft beneath her fingers and she was crying again. Good lord. Crying. Again. 

“Welcome back, Peggy,” he said softly, as she buried her face in his neck. “Don’t do that to me again.”

Her fingers curled into his hair, and she pressed her cheek to the side of his throat. “Yes, Captain,” she whispered.


	25. Unsuspecting

It transpired that while Steve and Bucky had an apartment in Brooklyn, there were also a couple of levels of Stark’s building set aside for the people who were classed as the ‘Avengers’. It was a generous space, with an oversized couch that Peggy found herself occupying as soon as she was given fresh clothing.

Steve carried her there.

He insisted, especially given the ripped muscle in her thigh, and the after-effects of no less than three cardiac arrests. She hardly intended to refuse, not when it meant he was holding her, and she could feel small and fragile and helpless, something she had not been for decades.

It was astonishing how exhausting almost dying several times could be.

For all that she had been unconscious through the worst of it, her body was drained. Muscles ached from unknown struggles. Her heart was still labouring. The healing wounds at torso and thigh were burning if she moved too much.

When Steve settled beside her on the couch, he leaned back against the arm and offered his chest in wordless invitation. She nestled against him and listened to the steady beat of his heart, her eyes half-closed.

Barnes was in the nearby kitchen, cursing at the cookware, and clattering with the pans.

“What’s he trying to do?” she murmured, tilting her head into Steve’s touch as he ran his fingers across the fine stubble on her head.

“Allegedly, cooking some kind of meal.”

“I heard that, Rogers!” Barnes called over.

“You were meant to, Barnes!” Steve called back. 

Peggy couldn’t hide a smile. “Boys,” she murmured. “Play nice.”

“For us, this is nice,” Steve said. She could hear the happiness in his voice. No small wonder if he was safe in the company of people he cared about. She breathed in and out in time with the rise and fall of his chest, and her eyes drooped closed.

Steve only woke her when a dish of Barnes’ alleged food was set down on the table in front of her.

“I know you’re tired,” he said, helping her sit up, “but you need to eat. You’ve been on fluids for days.”

Peggy nodded, accepting bowl and spoon cautiously. Her left arm was stiff, and the joints clicked when they moved, but so far, it seemed to be working. She stirred at the bowl, some kind of spiced meat and vegetables and possibly pasta. 

Her mind tried to identify it, but her stomach couldn’t care less, and the bowl was half-finished before she realised it was some kind of chilli. Her tongue was almost numb when she set down the bowl.

Barnes grinned unrepentantly at her when she shot a glare at him. “All we had,” he said. He was sitting at the other end of the couch, one foot on the cushions.

“We all know that’s a load of bull,” Stark’s voice made her look up. He was standing in the doorway, a palmtop computer in his hand. 3D projections were raised off it, images of her arm, and he was studying them as he walked closer. “Jarvis, remind Bucky of house rule twenty-six, subclause C.”

“Any food stuff may be sourced within a two block radius, and ordered in within fifteen minutes, so don’t pretend like Tony Stark keeps his guests starved, sir.”

Barnes grinned even more widely. “I have subclauses again? How much trouble am I in, Tone?”

Peggy watched the way Stark looked at Barnes, the wry turn of his mouth. “Well, I haven’t blocked you from the building yet,” he said. “One day, I’ll have a reason and you’ll be out on your ass.”

“Try it,” Barnes said cheerfully, spreading his arms. “I know your every dirty secret, Tony.”

“Yeah,” Stark said with a snort, “and now, we finally know yours.”

For a moment, Barnes looked blank. “Huh?”

Stark finally looked up from the 3D projection, shutting down the image. “Am I the only one who looked at the files that Captain Grandpa’s girlfriend went after?” he said, glancing between Steve and Barnes. “Seriously?”

Steve sat up a little straighter. “Tony, explain.”

Stark turned his astonished look to Peggy. “You didn’t even tell them what you were going for?” Peggy said nothing, her lips pressing together. “Good god, you people are a stupid-heroics match made in somewhere.”

“Tony.” Barnes’ voice was uncharacteristically serious. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Stark set his palmtop down on the table and drew projections up out of the screen, scattering them across the air in front of Steve and Barnes. Peggy looked away. She’d seen the files before, and didn’t need to see them again. 

“Is that…” Barnes’ voice shook.

“Zola,” Steve finished quietly.

They were both silent for several minutes, and Peggy looked down as Steve’s hand covered hers on the couch. He must have realised what he was looking at a moment before Barnes did, and saw what it meant.

“Jesus.” Barnes leaned back. Then he leaned forward again. “Jesus, Pegs.” She could feel him staring at her. “This is his file on me, isn’t it? This is everything that son of a bitch did to me.”

Her hands were trembling. 

It was always a measure of calculation. Would the information be acceptable or would it be something to cause more damage? She hadn’t had a chance to warn them of what the files contained. She hadn’t had a chance to tell them anything.

“I… thought you might like to understand,” she said cautiously. “To know what he intended. That you were meant to be like Steve, but for them.”

“Jesus,” he whispered again. “Carter, you almost died.”

She lifted her shoulders. “I thought you might like to understand,” she said again, her mouth dry.

The cushion of the couch shifted beside her. Barnes. Closer. She only understood his intention a moment before his arm wrapped around her shoulder and he squeezed her. She looked up from her hands at his face, her heart pounding hard against her ribs.

His eyes were shining with tears that he wasn’t quite shedding. “I could kiss you, you crazy woman,” he said, his voice breaking.

Peggy breathed out. Good. That was good. He wasn’t hurt or upset or damaged. Could kiss. That was a good response. Wasn’t it?

Their faces were close, and she could feel the warmth of him. She pressed her brow to his, and his breath caught, sudden and sharp. Still afraid, she knew, drawing back, but before she could go further, his hand was behind her head, gentle but firm. 

“Don’t you ever do something like that again,” he whispered, the plea in his voice mirrored in his eyes. “I thought I got you killed once before. I couldn’t do that again. Please.”

Peggy stared at him. Of course. She hadn’t even considered that. “I swear,” she said, aware of Steve’s hand around hers, of Barnes’ fingers curling against the back of her head, of the proximity of the man who was waiting for her, and the man who had helped her put herself back together. 

Stark cleared his throat loudly, and Barnes pulled his hand back as if he’d been burned.

“I’ve been having Jarvis catalogue the information,” Stark said, but Peggy wasn’t really listening. She was looking at Barnes instead. He had his eyes fixed on Stark, and his hands clenched together in his lap.

She was unsure what had discomfited him. 

Perhaps the simple fact she had acted on his behalf.

Perhaps the unexpected intimacy that came from his touch, as well as Steve’s.

Perhaps the fact that she hadn’t pulled away from him, and he hadn’t immediately pulled away from her.

He was uncomfortable, that much was apparent, and she suspected she was the cause. Better to remove the cause, and the discomfort in one fell swoop. She tightened her fingers around Steve’s. “I think I need to rest,” she lied. “Is there a bed?”

Steve nodded at once, rising and lifting her in his arms. “You can use my room,” he said. “I don’t use it much, but it’s comfortable.”

The room was more like a hotel room, decorated beautifully, but lacking the personal touches of Steve’s own apartment. He carried her across to the bed, setting her down gently on the edge of the mattress.

“Do you need anything?” he asked. “Painkillers? Something to drink?”

She caught his fingers, holding them fast. It took all her courage to speak. “Will you stay with me?” she asked in a whisper. “I would rather not wake up alone again in a strange place.”

“Of course,” he said, crouching down and taking her hand between his, looking at their interlacing fingers. “I don’t know how to thank you, Peggy.” He looked up at her. “I mean, for what you did for Bucky. You don’t know how hard it’s been for him, not knowing.”

She reached out with her false hand, touching his cheek as lightly as she could. “Believe me, I know,” she said, “and you’ve ended up with both of us and all the trouble we bring.”

He tilted his head into her cheek. “You make it sound like that’s a bad thing,” he said.

“Isn’t it?”

He smiled at her. “Not from where I’m sitting,” he said.

She watched the way her metal thumb curved against his cheek. “You’re a very singular man, Steve Rogers,” she murmured, then leaned down and carefully kissed him.


	26. Unidentified

There were arms around her.

Peggy’s breath tightened in her chest. She was about to lash out when the arms lifted away. She was off the bed, and halfway across the room, backed against the wall before she remembered where she was. Her wounded leg was unsteady beneath her, and her fingers skittered on the wall.

“Peggy?” Steve leaned up on the bed.

Steve.

Safe.

Gentle.

Good. 

She pressed her back to the wall, gulping ragged breaths. It made her chest burn down her left side. The other wound. Painful. She closed her eyes, gathering herself, but her leg wouldn’t hold her. She slid to sit at the bottom of the wall, her hand pressing to her side.

She heard Steve’s feet touch the floor, heard him approach.

It was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

They were both fully clothed on top of the covers, and he hadn’t even tried to touch her in any way that she would have refused. He’d let her rest her head on his chest, and talked quietly to her to lull her to sleep. He was safe. She was safe with him. He would never, never do to her what others had done.

“You want me to go?” he asked gently.

She reached out blindly, her eyes still pressed closed, and trembled when he laid his fingers in hers. “No,” she whispered. “Please don’t.”

His lips brushed her knuckles, light as air. “Okay,” he murmured.

She opened her eyes, looking back at him. He was on his knees in front of her, and the concern on his face made her want to weep. He had done nothing to deserve someone as damaged as she was.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s all… it’s a lot. You and Barnes are safe. I know that, but I’m so used to…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“I know,” he said, and the weight in those words made her close her eyes again. 

Of course, he’d read the files, he’d seen the data, he knew exactly what the Winter Soldier had been used for, even the elements she’d tried to keep from him. She felt him move a little closer, but he let her close the gap, leaning into him. His fingertips were light on the back of her head, stroking the short hair.

“I know someone,” he said. “Someone who might be able to help you.”

She rested her brow on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of each breath. “How?”

“Someone who could listen,” Steve murmured, his lips close to her crown. Somehow, he had wrapped himself all around her, legs framing hers, arms around her. He was her shield against the world, keeping her - the deadliest weapon - protected. “Sometimes it helps to have someone who doesn’t know you to talk to. Someone neutral.”

She moved her hand from her ribs, curling her metal fingers against his chest instead. “I’m… not very good at talking,” she said.

“You don’t have to be,” Steve murmured. “He’ll listen either way.”

“He?”

Steve nodded. “Good friend of mine and Bucky’s. He helped Bucky a lot with everything that happened.”

Peggy was still in his embrace, and opened her eyes to watch her fingers wrinkling his shirt. It was pale, not quite white, and clung to him like a second skin. 

She liked it when he was close. 

Barnes too. 

Both of them let her feel small and safe and human for a moment, but if she kept lashing out, she knew she might hurt them both, far too easily. Barnes still had the mark on his neck from the last time he woke her. Steve was bruised from holding her while they saved her life.

She couldn’t be the one to hurt them anymore.

“Maybe,” she said quietly. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

He didn’t say anything more about it. 

Instead, he just insisted on taking care of her, tending her wounds and making sure she didn’t push herself too hard too fast. 

They remained at Stark’s tower, so Stark could continue to work on her arm, and she could recover with all the medical care Stark could afford. It was because of Barnes, she realised. He cared about Barnes as much as Steve did . 

While nothing could undo what the Winter Soldier had done, her actions had made a small step towards atoning for it.

Stark never said anything about why Barnes was so important to him. Peggy didn’t know if she was ready to ask. 

After all, Barnes was working with Howard Stark throughout Tony Stark’s childhood, up until Howard Stark died. Maybe he had been a friend throughout Stark’s life. Maybe he was the closest thing Tony Stark had to family.

Barnes wasn’t about to tell her.

He had vanished from the building, which was no small surprise. He had a lot of new information to process, and had she been in the same situation, she would have preferred to do it alone. She didn’t ask where he was, and Steve didn’t say anything about it. 

She wondered, but it felt impolite to press about him. He had matters enough to deal with. 

Instead, she slept a lot more than she did anything else. Her chest still hurt, and she could scarcely walk across a room without struggling. In the past, she would have been sealed into her cryo-chamber to recover until she was needed. They would never have left her to recover like a human being. She was a weapon, left to rest until needed. 

Now, she was tired and she was hurt and she felt a hundred years old. 

Steve was always there with her, sometimes sitting reading by the bedside, sometimes sleeping in a bedroll on the floor, so he was always there when she woke. Sometimes, she would even wake up to find her hand curled in his beside the bed.

Four days later, when most of the damage was almost healed, she woke alone in the room for the first time. A note lay beside her on the pillow, and she picked it up as she sat up. Steve’s smooth cursive writing curled across the page.

_Peggy,_  
Bucky called. I had to head out and see him. I’ll be back by noon. There’s food in the kitchen. If you need anything, Jarvis can help you.  
Steve 

She touched his name lightly with her fingertips.

He didn’t want her to wake alone.

She got up carefully from the bed, walking on bare feet through to the kitchen, and froze.

There was a man at the refrigerator, pouring himself a glass of orange juice.

There was a rack of blades within touching distance, but this was a designated safe area. No one could enter who was not permitted by Stark.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice low.

He almost dropped the glass, whirling around. “You gotta wear a bell!” he exclaimed, setting the glass down on the counter. “You move like a cat.”

Peggy stared at him. She recognised him. Of course she did. He was the soldier who had fought alongside Steve on the helicarrier. He was the one with wings. He was the man who had confronted her in the hospital. 

“What are you doing here?” she repeated, her hands in fists by her sides. She was only wearing Steve’s shirt and shorts again, and she was unarmed. Not that it made any difference, if she chose to attack, but there was something more vulnerable in being seen like that.

The man lifted down a second glass and filled it with juice, then carried it over to her, holding it out. “I was coming to town to have Stark take a look at my rig,” he said. She reluctantly took the glass from him. He was watching her, not with fear or suspicion. Just watching. “Steve said you might need someone to talk to.”

The glass was cold against her fingers, and she looked down at it, then set it down on the counter, resting her fingertips on the rim. “Did he?”

The man shrugged. “It’s up to you,” he said. “I’m here until Stark gets his ass in gear and I’m in the mood for making scrambled eggs. You want some?”

She looked at him. He appeared to be around the same age as she, Steve, and Barnes had been when war tore them apart. He was younger, though, so much younger. She searched his face. There was something there, something older and wiser than his years should have allowed.

“I don’t need to tell you anything?”

He shook his head, returning to the refrigerator and taking out some eggs. “You can tell me to shut the hell up or you can let me talk your ears off or you can talk yourself hoarse,” he said. “I’m just here for the rig, but if you wanna say anything, I’m not gonna let anyone else know.” He glanced over his shoulder with a small smile. “Hell, if you want to tell me what Captain Perfect’s weakness is so I can beat him on laps, I won’t tell him it was you who told me.”

Peggy’s lips turned up just a little. She picked up the glass and made her way over to the table, sitting down. “I wouldn’t mind some eggs,” she said.

He smiled at her, and it was a smile like Steve’s, a kind smile, an open, honest smile. “I’m not promising a masterpiece,” he warned. “Don’t let the Cap fool you into thinking we can all cook like he can.”

“He can cook?” Peggy said.

The man started laughing. “So he tells me,” he said. He turned around to face her, holding out a hand. “We never formally met. Sam Wilson.”

She looked at his hand, then back up at him. She had torn his wings from his back and thrown him from a helicarrier, almost killing him, but there was no fear in his face. “Peggy Carter,” she said, taking his hand and shaking it. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr Wilson.”

“Sam, please,” he said, smiling that warm smile. “Mr Wilson is my father.”

“Very well,” she agreed. “Sam.”


	27. Uncomfortable

Sam was pleasant company.

It was strange too.

For the first time since her return, he was one of two people she’d met who knew what she had done, but didn’t seem afraid. Steve was the other exception. Romanoff, Stark, even Barnes looked at her warily sometimes, but Sam Wilson talked to her as an equal, as another soldier returned from the battlefield.

They ate at the table, he in large bites and her in delicate nibbles, and remained there.

She didn’t say much of herself, letting him talk instead.

He laid all his cards bare in front of her: who he was, where he came from, the trouble he’d had in returning to civilian life after returning from the war zones. She listened and he showed her exactly why Steve trusted him to help her.

Finally, she said, “You were the man who helped Barnes, weren’t you? He said there was someone who helped him.”

Sam shrugged with that quick, bright smile. “I like to think everyone’s capable of helping themselves,” he said. “I just give them the tools they need to work at it. It’s never going to be easy, but sometimes, you just need someone to point out a place to start.”

He made it sound so simple, almost like an operation, something to be planned.

It wasn’t that simple. It couldn’t be.

She thanked him for his time, placed her dishes in the dishwasher, and retreated to the room that was allocated to Steve. She didn’t want to rest anymore, but she didn’t want to talk either. Perhaps he could help, but to help in any way, she would have to tell him, and if she told him, then it would only solidify how real it all was.

She knew Sam was speaking sense.

He had helped Barnes.

He had helped Steve.

He had helped himself too.

They were all soldiers, picking themselves up and putting back pieces that war had knocked out of them. Or in her case, trying to find all the pieces she had been broken into and seeing if there was any way to make the cracks line up again.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, her hands flat on her knees.

It wasn’t just about coming back from a war.

It wasn’t just about remembering who she was.

There were so many layers of scar-tissue, mental and physical, to be picked through. There were so many matters she never wanted to think about again. So many situations that made her freeze to the bone. So many things that brought a knife to Barnes’ throat or a fist to Steve’s face.

She took an unsteady breath.

By hurting them, she only harmed herself more.

What had been done could not be undone, but if she could control her responses, deal with the after-effects…

She didn’t know how long she just sat there, turning over the thought like a coin between her fingers. Yes or no. Speak or silence. Accept or refuse. Help or hinder. Confess or lie. Acknowledge or deny.

The sun was high, filling the common area, when she finally walked out of the room. She’d dressed in borrowed clothing, the collar of the blouse buttoned high, the suit tailored as if it was made for her. She felt like herself, at least what she could remember of herself.

Sam was still there, sprawled on the couch with a magazine.

“Do you have a little time?” she asked abruptly. “I would quite like to take some air.”

He sat up with a smile. “Sure,” he said. “You got somewhere in mind?”

She could remember the sprawling patch of green that cut into the heart of the city. It was probably thick with ice and snow, but it was out of doors and it was bright and clear. “Central Park,” she said at once. “I need to walk. My leg. I need to use it.”

One of Stark’s drivers took them right up to the edge of the park, dropping them by one of the gates, and Sam offered her a hand to get out of the car. She hesitated, then let him draw her up, as if she was just a normal woman.

“You sure you’re going to be warm enough?” he asked. “It’s kinda cold.”

Peggy glanced down at the woollen coat and cashmere scarf she was wearing, then back at him with a slight turn of her lips. “I was operated on in minus-sixteen degrees Celsius temperatures less than a fortnight ago,” she said. “This is positively balmy.”

He shook his head with a grin. “Steve told me you got really British about the weather,” he said, falling into step beside her as they walked into the park. “I didn’t believe him.”

“It’s a reliable inconstant,” she said, slipping her gloved hands into her pockets. Her right hand was shaking, and it felt better to conceal it, clenching it into a tight fist. “You can always find some way to discuss it: too cold, too hot, too dry, too wet.”

“And a neutral topic too, I guess,” he said. “Something everyone can relate to.”

She nodded, looking ahead. “And to avoid more difficult topics,” she said.

“That too,” he agreed. 

The grit on the pavements crunched beneath her boots, and she breathed in the cold air, feeling it uncurl into her lungs. She could see by the way Sam’s shadow fell ahead of them that he was looking at her from time to time. 

“How far d’you think you’ll be able to walk?” he said. “Just so we can figure out a route?”

Her leg still ached, but it needed to be pushed. “I’ll tell you when we need to turn back,” she said, then slanted a look at him. “Unless you get too cold.”

He laughed. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m not a big fan of the cold. No minus-whatever operations for me, thank you very much.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said. She hesitated, breathing deeply, before saying, “All things considered, though, I would take it over my blue-letter operations.” 

“Blue-letter?” He spoke quietly, gently, and that made it easier.

“They coded missions,” she said, staring ahead as they walked. “Black for kill only. Red for capture only. Blue for infiltration in a… very particular fashion.” Her mouth felt dry, so she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “They were more…”

She trailed off helplessly.

There were too many words, and too many flickers of too many memories, of hands, bodies, sweat, bruises, blood. She had to stop, closing her eyes, trying to gather herself. They both were and weren’t her memories, and that made it worse: knowing her body had endured such things, and knowing she had no part in it.

“Intimate,” Sam said quietly. 

She nodded, her eyes still closed.

“How about we sit down?” he offered. “There’s a bench.”

She nodded, unable to give voice to a single word.

“Can I touch you?” he offered. “To lead you over?”

That consideration made her throat feel tight. “Thank you,” she whispered, offering her arm.

He guided her over to the bench, in a world that was more than a little blurry. Her eyes felt hot and wet, which was nonsense. She was only saying words. There was no reason to be ridiculous and emotional about it.

He didn’t speak right away. He seemed to know she needed a moment.

“I have a lot of female veterans come through my offices,” he said finally. “You’re not alone in this, Peggy.”

She wrapped her left hand around her right. That was a mistake, her hand squeezing too tightly, so she unfolded them again, then refolded them right over left. “I-I feel it shouldn’t affect me,” she said, the knuckles of her left hand pressing to her right palm. “I was unaware. I was… disassociated from myself. They… touched the Winter Soldier, not Peggy Carter.”

“But it was still your body,” Sam finished for her. “The difference between choosing and being chosen. You didn’t get the choice.”

She pressed her lips together, drawing a breath through her nose, and nodded. “I remember them now,” she confessed, her voice unsteady. “Not all of them, thankfully, but pieces, moments.” She swallowed hard. “Pain. I remember pain.”

“Do you still feel pain now?”

She couldn’t help laughing, but it was a hollow, brittle sound. “Romanoff cut a bullet out of my ribcage with a pocket-knife ten days ago,” she said. “I’ve been electrocuted, stabbed, shot, burned, beaten more times than I care to think about. I can’t remember what it was like not to feel pain.”

“From those situations?” he asked quietly. “In case there was physical damage?”

Peggy shuddered. “I… doctors and I. We don’t… get along too well. They did this to me. It makes it quite hard to…” She shook her head, her voice fading to nothing.

“Understandable,” he murmured. “Steve mentioned you’d been getting medical treatment at Stark tower.”

“Not by preference.” It came out sharper than she intended. “Necessity.” She rose from the bench, pushing her hands back in her pockets. “Shall we walk?”

Sam joined her back on the path. “Did you tell them you weren’t comfortable?”

She shook her head, her eyes fixed on a distant point. “It feels rather ungrateful, when they were obliging enough to save my life.” She breathed out, her breath misting before her eyes. “I suppose they might have noticed that I had to be restrained.”

She heard Sam swear under his breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She lifted her shoulders. “Necessity,” she said again.

If she quickened her pace, she told herself it was only to stretch her damaged leg and to use her aching lungs. If she was walking fast enough that Sam was half-running to keep up with her, it was only because she needed to exercise her tired body. If her eyes stung and her cheeks were wet, it was only because of the cold.


	28. Undeniable

When they returned to Stark tower, Peggy was silent.

It felt like she had said too much. It felt like she was making a lot of fuss about something that was outwith her control.

She turned in the elevator and held out her hand to Sam, thanking him cordially. He said it was nothing, and he clasped her hand just long enough for it not to be uncomfortable. As soon as the doors opened, she walked out. 

The living area was more occupied than it had been.

She recognised Romanoff, but there was another man there too, and she had no desire to be around people. She walked passed them in silence, towards the room that was Steve’s, and stepped in, closing the door behind her. 

Steve was sitting at the desk, sketching, and he looked up. “Hey. Good walk?”

She stood there, silent, then undid her coat. “Yes. Thank you.”

It was impossible to think of what she was meant to say. Should she thank him for calling Sam in? Should she tell him what she had discussed with the man? Should she tell him everything that still troubled her?

Instead, she said nothing, laying the coat on the end of the bed and sitting down to remove her boots.

She knew Steve wasn’t watching her. So many years of being observed had given her a sixth sense for when there were eyes on her. She took her time removing the boots, watching the flecks of ice melting on the toes.

Her telephone buzzed in her pocket. She withdrew it, drawing up the message.

[Want to stay in here tonight?]

Peggy touched the screen.

[Please.]

She hesitated, then added.

[Please can we go back to your apartment soon.]

It felt too forward, but Steve and Barnes’ apartment felt safer. It was not so open. It was not so busy. It was not filling with strangers and soldiers and people she didn’t know. It was a place where both men were, and where she could feel smaller and protected and not as if she was being watched twenty-four hours a day.

The feet of Steve’s chair scraped quietly along the floor as he pushed back from the desk. “We can go now, if you want,” he said. 

She didn’t reply. She just slipped her feet back into her boots and nodded.

When they emerged from the room, she slid her hand into Steve’s. It felt right there. Comfortable. She raised her eyes to the couch, where Sam had joined Romanoff and the other man over a plate of nachos.

Romanoff nodded in greeting to her. “Hey.”

Peggy inclined her head. “Romanoff.”

Romanoff’s lips twitched. “You could call me Natasha, Carter. We saved each other’s lives. I think we’re on first-name terms now.”

Carter looked away. Natasha was only a step away from Natalia, and that thought still sent chills through her. “Perhaps,” she agreed. “Thank you for your assistance.” She could remember so little of it, only ice and blood and pain. “It was… well done.”

Romanoff shrugged. “You did it first,” she said. “How’re you doing?”

“Breathing,” Peggy said, her grip on Steve’s hand tightening. They were watching, Sam and the other man, and she had no desire to be watched anymore. 

“If Stark asks,” Steve said, his thumb stroking soothingly along the back of her hand, “we’re heading back to the apartment. It’s quieter there.”

“You know where to find us,” Sam said, and Peggy knew his words were for her.

She lowered her eyes, and let Steve lead her through the building. It was too big, too bright, too corporate, too much like a world she was trying to step back from. Metal and chrome and glass and science.

Steve had his motorcycle parked outside.

He hesitated when they reached it, and looked at her. “You okay to ride?”

For the first time in what felt like hours, she could smile. “I have ridden far worse,” she said.

When he climbed on, she slid onto the seat behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. It was strange that it felt so much more intimate than lying in bed together. Her legs framed his and his back was broad against her chest. She pressed her cheek between his shoulders, and held on fast as he started the engine.

It felt like no time until they were in Brooklyn, drawing into the parking bay beneath Steve’s building. For a place that was so undefended, it astonished her how safe it felt. It was only an apartment block, and yet, it felt more comforting than all the defences all over Stark’s shining metal buildings.

“We can get take out,” Steve offered. “There’s a great Korean place a couple of blocks over.”

She breathed in deeply and then out. “That would be lovely,” she said, following him up the stairs towards the apartment. He helped her out of her coat as soon as they crossed the threshold, and she retreated to the couch that she called hers, removing her boots and pulling her feet up onto the seat.

The blankets were still there, folded where she had left them, and she dragged one closer to wrap it around herself. The scent of it, the warmth of the place, everything about the home that Steve and Barnes shared felt right. She closed her eyes, leaning back against the couch.

Here, she didn’t have to defend herself. Here, she could rest and she was safe.

Steve was in the kitchen, and she heard him talking on the telephone. Ordering food, from the sounds of it, though no food she recognised. She had learned a long time before not to be fussy, and if Steve thought Korean food would be suitable, then she would try it.

“It’ll be ready for pick up in fifteen minutes,” he said, wandering into the living room.

Peggy opened her eyes to look at him. “Would you mind if I stayed here?” she asked. “I’m a little tired.”

He smiled. “Sure,” he said, coming over to the couch and sitting down beside her. “You don’t need to push yourself.”

“Force of habit,” she said with a tired smile. She looked down at her hands, folded together between her chest and upraised knees. “Could you thank Sam for me? He tried and I think it may have helped somewhat.”

“He knows,” Steve said. He hesitated, then leaned closer and touched the lightest of kisses to her brow. It was nice. It was normal. “If it helped, I’m glad. He knows what he’s talking about.”

Peggy nodded, picking at the seam of her trousers.

They sat in silence for a little longer, Steve close to her, but not touching. It was quiet, and it was settled. She tentatively put out her left hand to touch his right. His fingers curled around hers. He never flinched from the metal of her touch, not once.

They were still sitting like that when his phone buzzed, and he glanced at it.

“I’ll be back in five minutes,” he said, lifting her false hand to his lips and kissing the knuckles as if it was flesh and blood.

She didn’t know quite what possessed her, but she lowered her legs and reached out with her right, catching the front of his shirt, pulling him closer to kiss him. 

He made a brief, hungry sound, and parted his lips to hers. Warmth rushed through her. So many years of people using her for their will, and now, she had the will to make the choice, and he wanted to and would let her touch him.

It was different here, away from Stark’s machines and cameras and watchful eye.

Here, there was privacy and there was nothing but them, and the way their breath caught on one another’s lips. Steve’s hands ghosted down her arms, over her back, barely even touching, and that made her shiver with a dozen different emotions.

He drew back, resting his brow against hers. He was smiling, and she had a feeling she was too. 

“Hey,” he said softly.

She touched her fingertips to his cheeks. “You should fetch the food,” she said.

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” 

For just a moment, he looked like the flustered young man she had once known, lifetimes before. He scrambled up, and Peggy pulled her feet back onto the couch, letting the blanket settle around her again.

When he was gone, she unfolded from the couch, wrapping the blanket around her like a shawl, and padded through to the art room. The light flickered on at her touch, and she approached the workbench, looking down at the scatter of drawings lying there.

She spread them with her fingertips, and was unsurprised to see her face appear more than once, interspersed with sketches of Barnes and a dozen other people she recognised, but did not know. 

The drawings of her caught her eye. They were no longer just memories of the Peggy Carter he’d know. They were drawings of her, as she was now. Something like Peggy Carter, but with sharper edges. She looked similar, but not the same. It was an accurate image. She could never be as she was, but she could be similar.

She heard the door of the apartment open and turned her head.

The footfalls were too heavy to be Steve.

Barnes, then.

She hadn’t seen him for days, not since he learned why she was in the Urals in the first place. Not since their faces were so close that their breath was warming each others’ skin. I could kiss you, he’d said. He wasn’t Steve, but they had been so close, and Steve had been there too, and it had felt… right.

She looked back down at the drawings and stacked them back together neatly, straightening the edges. 

“Hey, Steve.” Barnes’ footsteps approached the room. “You staying here or at the tower to…” His shadow fell into the room through the open doorway, and he stopped dead. “Carter?”

She hesitated, then turned. 

The last time she saw him, his hand was at the back of her head, and his brow was pressed to hers, just as Steve’s had been. He still flinched from her, but he touched her too. He knew what it was to be damaged like her.

The blanket fell from her shoulders as she walked towards him and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. He staggered, startled. She was not one to embrace people, but Barnes had embraced her, and now, she wanted to offer him that same warmth. There was comfort in such contact, for both of them. She needed it, and some part of her wondered if he - the man left behind and alone for so long - craved it too.

“Carter, what…”

“Please, sergeant,” she whispered, her fingers curling into his shirt. “Allow me this.”

His arms went around her, and she closed her eyes tightly. Yes. Steve held her like she was precious, but Barnes held her like she was real and solid and human. She didn’t need one or the other. She needed both. She needed to feel both and be both.

Barnes rested his jaw against her hair. “What are we doing Carter?” he whispered. “What the hell are we doing?”

She lifted her head, their faces so close together that his breath fanned her cheeks. He wasn’t Steve. He never had been. But then, she wasn’t entirely Peggy anymore either, and sometimes, two people with sharp edges fitted together.

She breathed in, short and sharp, then out. His eyes were dark and he was watching her. Her tongue wet her lower lip, and she closed the distance between them, and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psst. Don't panic ;)


	29. Unexplainable

She kissed Barnes, and just for a moment, he held her a little tighter and kissed her back.

Her hand splayed on his back and her lips parted to his. One of his hands was at the back of her head, and his mouth was open too. It was rapid and panting and just a little rough. She was the one to draw back, and that was when Barnes opened his eyes.

He had flinched away from her before, but he never recoiled so violently as he did then.

“Shit!”

Her arms dropped back to her sides, and she stepped back, uncertain.

Barnes spun on the spot, kicking out at the door. It bounced back against the wall. He looked at her, then ran a hand over his face, through his hair, leaving it standing in all directions. “God, Carter… Peggy, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You didn’t,” she said. 

“I kissed you.”

She put her head to one side. “I kissed you first,” she said. “Me. I chose to.”

He shook his head, looking stricken. “But Steve…”

“I kissed him too,” Peggy said quietly. “It was only a kiss, Barnes.”

He rubbed his scarred hands over his eyes. He looked shaken, and distressed, and some part of her could understand why. There was a part of her that remembered words like harlot and floozy. There was a part of her that remembered man-and-wife was considered the only way a man and woman should be together.

But there was also a part of her that didn’t care about those things anymore, the part of her that had been used and broken and never allowed a choice before. If she took comfort from the touches of two men instead of one, who could judge her for that? If she felt safe with those men and they with her, what was the crime in it?

She stepped closer to him and lifted her hands, touching the back of his wrists as lightly as she could. “I’m sorry, Barnes,” she said as he slowly lowered his hands. “I should have asked.”

“You and Steve…” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to get in the way. I’ll head to Tony’s. He’s always got a room for me.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” she repeated. “Please. Stay here. You… help me. You know what it feels like. I…” She looked down at her hands where they were loosely wrapped around his wrists. “I want you to be here too. You and Steve. I need… I think I need you both to be here.”

“Why?” Barnes asked, his voice a hoarse whisper. He lifted his eyes to her, lost. “Why me? You’ve got him. He loves you. He’s good and he’s whole and he’s sane. Why the hell would you need someone like me?”

She met his eyes. “Because he’s good and he’s whole and he’s sane,” she replied softly. She lifted her human hand, her soft, pink flesh hand, and touched his cheek. Barnes closed his eyes, turning his face into her palm. 

He lifted his own hand to hold her hand there, and she knew the flicker she’d felt, the spark, when he’d held the back of her head, when they’d breathed one another’s breath, when he took her promise from her, was more than just imagination.

“Why’d’it have to feel okay, Carter?” he breathed. “Christ, it couldn’t just be simple, could it?”

“We left simple behind decades ago,” she replied, watching the way her thumb brushed along his lower lip. 

She didn’t love him. 

She didn’t desire him either.

She was very aware of that. 

What she felt for him was nothing like the emotions that engulfed her in Steve’s presence. But she wanted him close, skin to skin, breath to breath, lip to lip. He was the first person to embrace her or kiss her brow. He was the one who tended her, and put aside his fear for her. She wanted to touch him, safe in the knowledge that he would not hurt her.

It was a rare feeling.

Trust.

She trusted him.

She trusted him and she trusted Steve.

Her thumb followed the deeper lines around his mouth. He wasn’t the same young buck who had flirted with her so many years before, and she certainly wasn’t the quietly calm, aloof agent she had once been. Peggy Carter would never have taken comfort from Bucky Barnes in those days.

Peggy Carter would hardly have even allowed herself the privilege of holding the hand of the man she was quite besotted with.

It was a lifetime, several lifetimes, ago, and now, all she wanted and needed was to be close to the people she trusted.

She wasn’t sure which of them closed the gap between them, but their mouths met again. It was softer this time, slower, and she could taste coffee on his lips. His fingertips brushed up her back, to the nape of her neck, and he squeezed just enough to make her shiver.

She became aware that they were not alone before he did, and drew back, looking towards the door.

Steve was there.

She didn’t know how he’d got back into the apartment without a sound, but he had, and he was leaning against the doorframe, watching them. She felt Barnes tense beneath her hands, but didn’t look at him. Instead, she just held out one hand to Steve. 

He pushed off from the doorframe, approaching to catch the tips of her fingers on his. His thumb ran lightly across the back of her knuckles, and he searched her face. She didn’t know what he was looking for, but it seemed that he found it.

“Steve,” Barnes began. “I didn’t… we haven’t…”

Steve looked at him with a wry smile. “Been helping her? Hugging her? Comforting her?” He turned Peggy’s hand over, his thumb tracing circles in her palm. “Buck, be serious. I know how you comfort people and it’s not with a cup of warm milk.” He lifted Peggy’s hand to his lips and kissed her palm. “You touch. You always did.”

“Steve…” Barnes said quietly. 

Peggy curled her fingers against his cheek. “I didn’t know I would kiss him,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what this is. Any of it. But I know I need it, Steve.”

“I know.” Steve looked back at her with that familiar warmth in his eyes. “I know him,” he said, “and I know you, Peggy. And I know that some things, he does better than I do. Like knowing when someone needs a hug. Or a kiss. Or whatever.” 

She heard Barnes catch his breath, and pieces fitted together. Barnes was the man Steve had gone behind enemy lines for, broken the rules for, shaken the world for. How could she not have seen it before?

“You know him?” she asked, the words caught on her lips.

Steve drew back, looking at Barnes. 

Barnes lifted his shoulders.

“If we’re going to be damned, might as well be damned for everything,” he said quietly. “We used to fool around. A long time ago. Not so much anymore.” He smiled, a shadow of that smile she knew. “We’ve both been a little distracted.”

“By the ice and everything else that happened in between,” Steve agreed. “But whatever happens, me and Buck, we go together. We always did.”

Peggy looked between them, the two sides of a coin, dark and fair, broken and whole, unstable and steadfast, friend and lover. They were both looking back at her, and she said the first thing that came to her mind. “Well, that’s convenient.”

Barnes looked from her to Steve, then back. “Pegs,” he began, then trailed off. 

The woman she had been would have been mortified. The woman she had been would have blushed and tried to dismiss what she had just said. The woman she had been was unbroken and untouched and pretty bloody innocent by all accounts. 

The woman she was now wasn’t.

There were no blinkers, no rose-tinted glasses, no illusions of propriety and modesty to cling to anymore.

“You’re safe to me,” she said, picking her words with care. “Both of you. I haven’t felt safe for a long while.”

“Peggy,” Steve said, and he sounded both heart-broken and wondering.

Barnes’ hands were thrust into the pockets of his trousers. “So what do we do?” he asked. “I mean, you guys… I always figured you would…” He trailed off again, and Peggy knew what he’d intended to say: he believed Steve would choose her.

“Right now,” Steve said, “we have take out. We should eat it before it gets cold.”

Peggy nodded gratefully.

“Steve…” Barnes began.

“Food first, Buck,” Steve insisted. “Then we can figure things out.”

Steve had Peggy’s right hand, but she reached out with the other and caught Barnes’. “Will you stay?” she asked.

He looked down at her metal fingers, curled around his. The wrong hand, she realised. He still saw the Winter Soldier in that hand, and she was about to draw it back, when he turned his hand and folded his fingers between hers. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll stay.”


	30. Upset

He stayed.

They all did.

It was strange the difference that stability made.

None of them slept in the same bed as one another.

Steve and Barnes both had their own rooms, and Peggy once more established herself on the couch with her collection of cushions and blankets. The difference was that both men now agreed that she was living with them, as opposed to simply staying on the couch.

It was that simple and that complicated all in the same moment.

They ate together, they talked together, and sometimes Peggy would touch one of them or the other. 

Sometimes, she needed Barnes to hold her that little bit tighter than Steve would, to knead at her neck and remind her that it was all right to fall apart. 

Sometimes, in the morning, she would slip into Steve’s room and wake him, before curling against his back and holding him. The nightmares weren’t so violent when she was doing the holding, and not being held. She knew he probably didn’t sleep when she was there, watching and waiting for the inevitable nightmares, but sometimes, she needed that comfort, and sometimes, she was selfish and tired.

Sometimes, Barnes leaned back in his chair in the evenings, and Steve stepped behind him and rubbed at his shoulders, drawing away some of the tension in his friend’s body. Sometimes, it was the other way around.

Once, Barnes rose from his chair, caught Steve’s head between his hands and kissed him square on the mouth, much to Steve’s astonishment, then looked at Peggy as if expecting shock or disgust. Testing the limits, seeing what this new arrangement was truly made of, to see if she truly understood what had been between them.

“Five out of ten for effort,” she said, and went back to reading her files.

Steve just laughed, and Barnes socked him on the arm, smiling.

It was stable and it was comfortable and it was safe, something they all needed. 

Their days saw them scattered.

The intelligence that Peggy and Romanoff had gathered about Barnes was proving useful. He and Steve were testing the limits of his endurance, while Peggy took her time to recover and worked on plans for future missions.

Much of her time was spent in Romanoff’s company.

What wariness had been there before was gone.

Romanoff smiled more easily, talked to her without the formal respect that had lingered from years of training. For the first time, Peggy remembered what it could be like simply to have a female friend. It had been such a long time since she’d been in that situation.

It was different compared to her relationship with either Steve or Barnes. 

Romanoff was the only person who shared so many of the experiences that Peggy had. She had seen things that the Winter Soldier had seen. She had recovered and become stronger, and that gave Peggy the assurance that it was possible to do so, despite everything that had been done to her. 

She was an aspiration.

They were going through data one afternoon when Peggy came to a decision.

“Romanoff.”

Natasha raised her head from the laptop she was working on. “Mm?”

“I…” She set down her pen. “I spoke to Sam several days ago.”

Natasha sat back in her chair. “I remember,” she said. 

Peggy turned the pen between her fingers on the tabletop. “He said it might be a good idea for me to see a gynaecologist. About possible damage,” she said quietly. “I’m… not comfortable with the idea, but he may be right.” She looked up to meet Natasha’s eyes. “Would you mind…”

“I’ll find you someone discreet,” Natasha replied. “Want me to come with you?”

Peggy nodded. “I think that may be for the best,” she said. “I tend to get… uneasy.” 

To her surprise, Natasha reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I’ve been there,” she said. She smiled. It wasn’t like Steve’s smile, or Barnes’ smirk. It was just a subtle tilt of one side of her mouth, but it was warm and genuine, and reached her eyes. “It gets easier.”

Peggy turned her hand under Natasha’s, watching the way their fingers intersected. “Really?”

The other woman hesitated. “Not right away, not for a long time,” she said, “but yeah. You find people who help make it easier. Find people who give you a chance.” She nodded. “It’ll be difficult, but it does get easier.”

Peggy breathed in slowly, then out. “A doctor, and then the next mission.”

“I know which I’d prefer,” Natasha said, wrinkling her nose.

“The one with guns?”

Natasha’s blue eyes glinted. “You read me like a book, Carter.” She released Peggy’s hand and returned her attention to the laptop, turning it around to let Peggy see the screen. “I have basic co-ordinates. Want me to schedule the flight plan for next week?”

It felt better to focus on that than to contemplate invasive medical examinations.

“Show me what you have in mind.”

The journey was scheduled for five days later.

The appointment with the doctor was three.

The facilities Natasha had found were not like any medical practise Peggy had ever seen. Although it was downtown, the building had a rooftop garden framed by private rooms, every one of which looked more like a spa room than a doctor’s office. It didn’t smell like a hospital or a medical ward, and there was no gleaming metal or polished glass to stir up memories of needles and straps and pain.

That made things easier.

The doctor was a woman of Indian descent, grave-faced with dark, liquid eyes and jet black hair in a thick braid down her back. She carried no medical equipment. She wore no white coat. She just smiled gently and listened to what Peggy haltingly said. 

It was easier, with Natasha by her side, but that didn’t stop the tears from burning in her eyes when she lay back on the examination table. Natasha stood by her head, and held her hand, and Peggy stared at the soft light above her, trying her best not to lash out. If she squeezed Natasha’s hand too hard, Natasha didn’t make a sound.

It was easier to think of her body as someone else’s, to draw back, to let the doctor do as she needed to, and try not to think on everything that had happened. 

She wasn’t quite sure how she went from the offices back into the car, or even how she got up the stairs to the apartment. Natasha must have guided her. She felt a thousand miles away, and her legs were shaking beneath her.

“You going to be okay from here?” Natasha asked when they reached the door.

Peggy nodded, groping in her bag for the keys. “Tomorrow, Stark tower for briefing?” she said. Her voice sounded like a stranger’s.

“I’ll be there,” Natasha murmured. She sounded concerned, but Peggy only wanted quiet.

It took her three attempts to get the key in the lock, and it wasn’t until she closed the door that she remembered she hadn’t said goodbye to Natasha. She looked at the keys in her hand, then at the door. There was no reason to feel weak and ill. Nothing harmful had been done, and yet, her hands still shook.

“That you, Carter?” Barnes called through from the kitchen.

She hastily set the keys down in the bowl beside the door. “Yes.”

He appeared in the doorway a moment later. It looked like he was fresh out of the shower, his hair still wet, and his t-shirt clinging here and there. He took one look at her, then crossed the hall in three steps and wrapped her in his arms.

“That bad?”

She nodded mutely, her arms limp by her sides.

He scooped her up as he had months before, carrying her unresisting through to the couch, calling out Steve’s name. By the time Steve hurried into the room, Peggy was curled up on the couch, Barnes’ arms around her.

“Hey, look at that, Pegs,” Barnes murmured, nudging her. “You get a free show.”

Steve was even fresher out of the shower than Barnes, wearing nothing but a towel. He was across the floor and kneeling in front of the couch in a heartbeat, one of his hands coming to rest on her bare foot on the edge of the couch. “Not the time, Buck,” he murmured.

“It’s always the time, when Captain half-naked shows up,” Barnes retorted, earning a weak smile from Peggy. “D’you get the all clear?”

Peggy shook her head. “Results’ll come later,” she said quietly. “But it’s done.” She unfolded one leg, letting Steve lean against her thigh. She could see the concern in his face, the tension in his bare shoulders. “I’ll be okay. It was just a doctor.”

“Just a doctor,” Barnes echoed. “Yeah. I know how that is.” He pressed his cheek to her hair. “How about I make us something to eat? Something hot and not good for us? Chocolate? Or pie? I can make pie?”

She leaned against him, her foot propped on Steve’s thigh. He was stroking her calf gently, comfortingly. “Maybe just stay like this for a little while?” she asked. “I… it wasn’t good.”

Steve got up from the floor, sitting down on her other side, and she and Barnes both leaned into his broader bulk. “Better?”

Safely nestled between them, she nodded.


	31. Undercut

Natasha had a flick knife lodged in her shoulder.

It was an untidy wound made worse by desperation. 

They had found another of their number, working a covert operation in Barranquilla. Until they accosted him, he had apparently been entirely unaware of their presence, but unlike both of them, he was very much a rough operative.

Peggy remembered him.

He wasn’t amenable to training from a woman.

Former soldier, ruthless, violent, large.

His weakness was their advantage, which was why Natasha was able to pin him down before he could complete his mission. They had not anticipated that he would break his own arm to get free, particularly at the angle he was locked.

That was why Natasha had a knife embedded in her shoulder.

Peggy levelled her gun as the man fled.

Her breathing was steady. Her right hand was stable, but her left shook. What might have been a kill shot on another day caught him high on the shoulder. He stumbled, but kept running, leaping down from the balcony and disappearing into the crowded main streets.

“Go after him,” Natasha hissed through clenched teeth. “I’m good.”

Peggy shook her head. “He’s too far ahead now,” she said, crouching down at Natasha’s side and drawing her coat away from the wound. It was telling how wildly the man had struck. The blade was caught between two bones.

Natasha caught her wrist. “I’m not the priority here, Carter. This is a big city. How do we find him?”

Peggy met her eyes. “Nano-trackers,” she said. “I loaded my rounds with them.”

Blue eyes - bright with pain - narrowed. “Where did you get them?” she asked. “Last I heard, they weren’t even out of the testing phases. Stark wouldn’t even let me touch them.”

“Let?” Peggy shook her head. “How unambitious.” 

Natasha choked down a laugh. “Stealing from Stark? How did you pull that off?”

Peggy held Natasha down and eased the blade free. “There are some tricks that our overlords were unaware that I knew,” she said innocently, as she pressed her hand to the bleeding wound. “Certain tricks that I prefer to keep to myself.” She searched Natasha’s face. “You need anaesthetic.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Local,” Natasha agreed, grimacing. “I’ll be fine. Numb me.”

Within fifteen minutes, they were back on the streets. 

Natasha’s wound was patched and bandaged, hidden beneath her coat. She was walking steadily, but Peggy kept one eye on her. The adrenaline would wear off sooner or later, and there was every likelihood that shock would kick in.

Until that happened, they would both keep moving.

The trackers seemed to be working.

Peggy’s small palm console, disguised as nothing more than a smart phone, showed the present location. Unless their assailant was remarkably adept at removing fragmented pellets from his shoulders, it looked like he was stationary inside a building several blocks away.

“We need a ride,” she said for Natasha’s sake. 

Natasha’s already fair skin was much paler than usual. “If we have to,” she said.

Peggy could scarcely remember the last time she had taken a cab to a target, but better to have Natasha capable as some kind of back-up rather than going in alone. Operative two - his name was long forgotten - was not someone to be faced single-handed, not when he had strength and speed on his side.

“Plan?” Natasha murmured in Russian, rubbing her shoulder.

“As before,” Peggy replied. “This time, you cover me.”

Natasha slanted a look at her. “I’ll do a better job than you did,” she said, and there was just enough mirth in her voice for Peggy to know she was being teased.

“I’m not the one who let a grown man stick a knife in my shoulder,” Peggy sniffed. “Quite frankly, I should have let him have at it.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows, her lips twitching. “I’m hurt.”

“In more ways than one, I expect,” Peggy said. She tapped the back of the driver’s seat, calling on him to stop. The building was ahead on their right. Peggy winced. A poorer residential zone. That could mean civilians. Collateral. Even hostages, if their enemy was as ruthless as she recalled.

Natasha stepped out onto the pavement beside her.

“This could get messy,” she observed quietly. 

The building was at least eight stories high. Peggy tapped at the screen of her phone, trying to collate the data. 

“He’s on the sixth floor,” she said. “Apartment at the left hand side. There are five other heat signatures present.” She looked up at the building, then back at Natasha. “You take the inside. I’ll take the fire escape. See if I can get eyes on the other bodies.”

“You’re just trying to make it so I can’t watch your back, aren’t you?” Natasha said dryly, but she turned and headed for the door, her steps slower now. Peggy saw her lift her hand to her ear to put her comm in.

She turned her attention to the fire escape, and started climbing, grateful that she’d had the forethought to wear boots. The metal was flaking and rusting, and more than one of the rungs of the ladder started to give beneath her feet. She climbed as quickly as she could, arm over arm, leg over leg, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts.

“In place,” she breathed, as she emerged onto the escape outside the apartment where the target was hiding. 

Natasha’s reply came a moment later. “Same.”

“Hold position,” Peggy murmured. She withdrew a compact from her pocket, extending it up over the window ledge to look into the room. The window was dirty, but she could see their target sitting backwards on a chair. A frightened-looking woman was working on his shoulder with tweezers, and the man’s hand held a gun, pointed as a small boy in front of him. 

There was also a man on the floor, bleeding from a head wound, and two more children huddled in one of the corners.

“Hostages,” she murmured, lowering the mirror. “Three children and one woman. One man, possibly a fatality.”

Natasha said nothing.

Peggy gauged the options.

There were numerous, some with bloody outcomes, some without.

She slid along the fire escape to the next window. It was pushed up, open enough for her to slide her hand under it. She oiled it, and the window moved up smoothly and silently. Easy access.

“I have an in,” she breathed. “Come knocking in five.”

By the time Natasha pounded on the door, she was in the apartment, across the floor, and at the doorway that led to the next room. 

Operative two didn’t move. He snarled something at the woman, who rushed to the door. She didn’t open it, but that was not unexpected. She spoke urgently in Spanish, insisting that she was busy just now, her children were sick, please come another day.

Her back was to the room. His back was to Peggy.

Three steps had her across the room and jerking the gun up, away from the child. He pulled the trigger and the shot bored into the ceiling, plaster raining down on them. He tried to jerk free, but Peggy tightened the grip of her metal hand, bring her right around in a savage blow that knocked his head back.

The woman screamed. Natasha took that moment to kick the door in.

“Get out!” she barked at the woman.

Peggy didn’t notice if she went, her focus on the man in front of her. Her left hand was twisting his right, and her right was at his throat, pushing his head back, one of her legs locked around his against the chair. 

He kicked out, shattering one of the legs of the chair, and it would have knocked them both off balance if she hadn’t anticipated it. His full weight dropped into her right hand, but his legs lashed at hers, and they crashed to the floor.

He was large and he was on top of her. She pushed his head back, but his reach was longer, and his hand was at her throat, squeezing. Her vision was spotting black, and she thrust the heel of her hand up. His jaw crunched beneath it. She heard his curse, a spray of blood spattering her face. His hand tightened even more.

A second gunshot.

Closer.

Through the haze of her vision, it seemed that his head erupted in a cloud of red.

Natasha dragged the Operative’s body off Peggy’s.

“Sorry,” she panted. “Kids didn’t want to leave.” 

She offered her hand. Peggy caught it, pulling herself upright.

She felt light-headed. The thought she might have almost died again was rattling around in her head like a dried pea in a tin can. The Winter Soldier would not have cared as long as the mission was done, but she had people waiting for her, people who would not be happy if she was killed. People she would not want to hurt with her passing.

“All things considered,” she said hoarsely, her throat aching where he had squeezed, “we’re not dead.”

“Kind of the result we were hoping for,” Natasha agreed, poking the man’s body with her foot. “What do we do with that?”

Peggy shook her head. She felt exhausted, despite the short fight. She wanted to be back on her couch, with no blood on her clothing and no bruises on her skin. “To be quite frank, I don’t give a damn,” she said, rubbing at her neck.

“Let law enforcement have him,” Natasha said, searching Peggy’s face. “You okay?”

“Mm.” She drew her fingers from her throat and crouched down over the body, placing a hyper magnet against the corpse’s shoulder. The ping of metal on metal was barely audible as the Nano devices ripped out of the man’s skin. She turned it over, checking the particles. “Stark might be cross if I leave that lying around.”

Together, they walked out into the hall.

“One down, at least,” Natasha murmured, holding out a scarf.

Peggy wiped the blood from her face. “Yes,” she agreed, looking at the red stains. 

The sooner it was all over, the better.


	32. Unravel

“Peggy? You okay?”

Peggy lifted her head, startled.

Steve was standing several paces away. He looked worried.

It took her a moment to get her bearings. Their apartment. The kitchen. She looked around, remembering. The refrigerator. She had come for a cup of warm milk. The door was open, the light off, and her right arm propped on one of the shelves, her left against the side.

Her skin was a rash of gooseflesh, and she was startled to realise she could not recall how long she had been standing there. 

“Milk,” she said, drawing her arms down. There were ridges sunk into her forearm. Good lord. How long had she been standing there? “I came for milk.”

Steve reached out and laid his hands on her shoulders. The sudden warmth of his touch through her t-shirt made her flinch. Too hot. Or perhaps she was too cold. She couldn’t tell anymore, and her skin was pale, mottled, purpling.

“You’re freezing,” he murmured.

Not quite, she thought distantly. 

“I should get a blanket,” she said. “Could you warm some milk for me, please?”

Steve nodded, rubbing his hands briskly down her arms. Always both arms. He never seemed to care that one of them was no longer flesh and blood. “I’ll bring it through for you.” He dropped a kiss on top of her head. “Cinnamon? Or honey?”

She shook her head, made no reply, as she padded back towards the living room. 

After the chaos of the mission in Columbia, after wiping blood from her face and hands, after seeing another agent die, she was tired. In another lifetime, it was simple. She would return to base, and return to containment. That was what a weapon did: was used, then stored until next required. It was simpler.

A weapon didn’t see a man’s face erupt in blood.

A weapon didn’t feel its life’s breath being choked out of it.

A weapon didn’t wake, gasping, in the night, tormented by nightmares of everything it had done.

A weapon was put into storage. Put on ice.

After her last mission, when she was wounded, when Natasha brought her back to New York, it had been in the ice. Silent. Separated from the memories of the night. Healing. Recovering. No nightmares.

She knew why she’d been standing at the refrigerator for so long, and it scared her.

She drew her feet up onto the couch and pulled a blanket around her, tucking it tightly. Her body was tingling as she started warming up again. She wrapped her arms around her legs, propped her chin on her upraised knees, and closed her eyes.

Her metal arm was even colder than usual. The plates pressed into the front of her calf, aching. There would be bruises within hours, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Steve joined her several minutes later.

He didn’t even hesitate before sitting down beside her on the couch, side on, one foot still on the floor. It was a wordless invitation, and she shifted sideways to rest against his chest, still staring at a point on the floor. 

His arm wrapped around her, broad and warm as ever.

“There’s honey in the milk,” he murmured, offering her the mug with his other hand. 

She unfolded one arm to reach for it, but her hand was shaking too much, and she swore under her breath.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, steadying the mug with his own hand. “I can hold it.”

She wanted to cry.

Everything about the situation was wrong.

She was free. She was stronger than she had been in years. Her medical reports had all come back clear of any problems. She was well and she was undamaged. She had the love and support of a network of brave and good people. She had taken care of the agency that had held her and the organisation that had made her. She should have been happy.

Steve held the mug, his fingers curled around hers, and helped her to drink.

Small sips. Warming. Comforting.

When there was only a little left, she pressed the mug into his hand, and laid her head down on his shoulder. He set the mug down on the floor, then wrapped his other arm around her too, just holding her.

She knew he wouldn’t speak.

At times like this, there were few words he could say that would help, and they both knew it.

“I think,” she finally whispered, “I need to talk to Mr Wilson again.”

Steve’s lips brushed her short hair. “I’ll call him up,” he murmured. “Stark could send down a jet to pick him up, if you want.”

That almost smacked of desperation, the need to have someone to speak to and soon, yet she couldn’t refuse. To ask for assistance felt like such a terrifying step. To lay herself bare, make herself vulnerable, lower all her defences.

Her arm was aching where the shelf of the fridge had pressed into it.

Her voice trembled and broke as she whispered, “I think that might be wise.”

They didn’t move from the couch, but he took out his phone and sent the messages. He didn’t call. He could tell she needed the quiet, and as soon as he was done, he put the phone away, and leaned back more comfortably against the arm of the couch.

“You want to stay here for now?” he asked.

It was tempting to do so, to use him as a living hot water bottle, but the chill had gone too deep already.

“I think I should have a bath,” she said quietly. “Warm myself through.”

He nodded, slipping his arm to her waist to help her rise. She must have been standing for longer than she thought because her legs ached beneath her. He got up, letting her lean against him, as he helped her through to the bathroom, the blanket still wrapped around her.

In silence, she sat on the lid of the toilet as he ran the bath.

They were practical men, not known for their self-indulgence, but Steve dug some bubble-bath out of one of the cabinets, the scent of her favourite flowers misting in the air.

“You’re spoiling me,” she murmured, rubbing her trembling hands together.

He looked up at her with a crooked smile. “This is Buck’s stuff,” he said. “Don’t tell him I told you.”

She should have smiled. That was the appropriate response. Instead, she only looked back at him, and rubbed her hands together over and over. He was worried about her. She was worried about herself. An awful situation to be in.

When the water was deep enough, steaming, and Steve had tested it with his hand, he rose on his knees. 

“Can I help you?”

She nodded mutely, letting him remove the blanket. He drew the t-shirt over her head, and helped her to her feet to take off the loose trousers she was wearing. He never stared, just casting his eyes over her, a frown furrowing his brow.

“You’ve lost weight,” he said quietly.

He would notice, of course.

“Yes.”

She knew he would arrange scheduled meals now. Something to help her. A simple gesture, but the need of a soldier. Unless the meals were presented, in the field, soldiers often forgot the simple act of eating. Hunger wasn’t so important when there was a gun pointing at you.

She took his arm and he helped her step into the bath.

It felt scorchingly hot on her skin, and her breath escaped in a rush. Tears sprang to her eyes, as she felt the heat throb through her, her blood warming and spreading. It hurt, but it was much more bearable than any other way.

She hesitated, then lowered her right arm into the water, balancing the left on the edge of the tub. It was still functional since Stark’s repairs, but there was no point in risking a leak by submerging it entirely.

Steve knelt down beside the tub, picking up one of the sponges - they always were old-fashioned - and gently started squeezing hot water over her neck and shoulders. It felt good, and she closed her eyes, tilting her head forward.

Outside of the bathroom, they heard the clatter of the front door.

Habit almost made her rise, but Steve closed his hand over her wrist gently. 

“Bucky,” he said.

She subsided back down into the water, watching the bubbles dissolving in front of her eyes.

Footsteps pounded along the hall.

Yes. 

Barnes.

“Steve? Pegs? You guys still here?”

He’d left after breakfast, to do training at Stark Tower. He laughingly said he would be taking down Iron Man. Steve told him he was an idiot. He’d punched Steve on the arm, kissed Peggy on the nose, and left. That was hours ago.

“In the bathroom, Buck,” Steve called.

He rattled on the door a second later. “You decent in there?”

She could feel Steve’s eyes on her, but didn’t raise her head. “He can come in, if he wants to,” she said, watching bubbles curl around her fingertips as they jutted out of the water.

Steve got up and went to the door, unlocking it.

She hadn’t even noticed it was locked.

That should have concerned her.

Barnes stepped in right away. Steve must have stopped him. She didn’t look, and they weren’t talking. Whatever exchange was happening, it was without words, and last only a second or two.

Then Barnes was beside the bath, hunkering down on his toes. “You got room for another in there?” he asked. “Warm you right up?”

Peggy lifted her head to look up. “What?”

He was shedding his coat and reached for the buttons of his shirt. “Tony kicked my ass black and blue,” he said. “I could hop in there with you. Keep you warm and ease my poor busted tush.” His hands lingered at his buttons. “If you want?”

Steve wouldn’t have made that offer. Not out of ignorance or prudishness. He just wouldn’t have thought of it. That was why Barnes was important.

She nodded, drawing her knees up and sliding a little way down the tub. She looked down at them, still healing from the last mission. It had taken two hours and tweezers to remove all the shards of the shattered chair from her right knee.

Barnes’ clothing landed on the floor, one piece at a time, then he was stepping into the bath behind her. His fingers brushed her ribs, letting her know she could move back. She slid back, neatly between his thighs, and his wet arms wrapped around her waist, drawing her to rest against his chest. Better than facing down. Better than staring at her knees. Warm. Good.

It was a tight fit, his thighs pressing against her sides, but that closeness was comforting too.

Steve was back kneeling by the side of the tub too, his arm resting on the side, his fingers covering the fingers of her false hand gently. She curled her fingers, hooking his, and looked up at him.

He leaned down and kissed her knuckles lightly. “Hey,” he murmured.

She squeezed his hand, shivering in Barnes’ embrace. “Hello.”


	33. Untangle

They were all piled on Steve’s bed when Sam arrived.

Steve had helped her out of the bath, dried her off and wrapped her in his old, thick bathrobe, while Barnes made do with a towel around his hips. The cold was subsiding, and the urge to seek it equally so, but she didn’t argue as Steve led her through to his room. 

Her flannel pyjamas were in the drawer she used and when she got them on, she was the first one to lie down on the bed. Instead of curling on either side, she lay flat on her back, looking up at the ceiling.

“Can I lie by you?” Steve asked.

She nodded once, but didn’t turn or look at him, not until he was laid out on his side beside her, drawing the blanket over her.

Barnes had no such manners.

“Incoming!” he called before crashing through the door, and leaping onto the bed. He’d got as far as putting on boxer shorts, but his chest was still wet. She and Steve both jolted at the impact, and Steve rolled his eyes.

“What are you? Twelve?”

Barnes made a face across Peggy at him. “Never had a bed this big when I was twelve,” he said, mirroring Steve’s position on her left-hand side. He propped his chin in his hand, looking down at her. “Feeling warmer?”

“Much.”

Barnes searched her face. “You hungry? I’m starving.”

“I should eat,” she agreed.

“No chilli,” Steve warned.

That almost drew a smile to Peggy’s lips. “Not this time,” she added, moving her hand to touch Barnes’ hip.

He headed to the kitchen, and came back with something between soup and stew a little while later.

It was a quiet meal, all of them propped up together in Steve’s bed. Peggy was in no mood for conversation, and while Barnes told them pieces of his battle with Stark, he was too occupied with eating to get the full story out.

Peggy pushed her bowl away half-empty, then drew the blankets around her again.

“Rest?” Steve offered. 

She nodded.

When the knock at the door came, she was dozing, sandwiched between Steve’s back and Barnes’ front, her arm around Steve’s waist. She almost knocked both of them off the bed as she scrambled up onto her knees, groping for a gun that was no longer at her thigh, her heart racing.

Barnes was on his feet first. “Easy, Pegs,” he said. “We’re expecting guests, remember.”

She closed her eyes, nodding, lowering both hands to rest on her thighs. Barnes headed for the door, and she breathed in and out slowly, steadying her heartbeat.

Steve rubbed her back. “The last mission was that bad?”

She shook her head, her hands curling into fists. “It’s not the mission,” she said unsteadily. “It’s me.”

“Peggy…”

She waved away his words, getting to her feet. “Trust me,” she said quietly. “I know.”

It was easier not to look at him.

She made her way to the bedroom door, hesitating there.

“I… it is better,” she said, “but it’s still… it’s difficult.”

She heard the creak of the bed as he got up. “I know,” he said. “I see it every day.”

She blinked hard, nodding, and made her way out into the hall. She could hear Barnes ahead, talking to their guest, and padded into the hall to meet him.

Sam Wilson had his jacket unzipped and he smiled in greeting. “Hey, Carter.”

“Mr Wilson,” she murmured. “Thank you for coming.”

“It’s no problem.” he glanced at Barnes, then back at her. “You want these clowns to hang around?”

Part of her wanted to say yes, but she shook her head. They already knew she was falling apart again. It was unnecessary for them to see all the gory details.

Barnes was in her space in a moment, wrapping his arm around her and kissing the top of her head. “I’ll drag his Captaininess out,” he said. “You’ve got our numbers if you want to get us back, okay?”

She moved her hand stiffly to touch his arm. “Thank you, sergeant.” Barnes released her, heading back to Steve’s room, and she turned from Wilson. There were some protocols that were required when one entertained. “Would you like some tea?”

“Tea’s good,” he agreed, following her through to the kitchen.

He didn’t press her for words, not even when Steve and Barnes dressed and left. He just let her make tea and then accompanied her through to the living room. 

She noticed that he let her sit first, taking her preferred place in the corner of the couch, where she would tuck herself if she was alone. Secure, nothing but walls at her back, clear sightlines to all parts of the room, all entrances and exits.

The spare blankets were still there, so she drew one around herself, and cradled her teacup between her palms.

Talking about her problems had never come easily to her.

One didn’t.

It wasn’t the done thing.

And then, as the Winter Soldier, words became irrelevant. Even if she spoke, no one would listen.

“I’m slipping,” she finally whispered, drawing her knees tighter against her chest. “I-I thought things would be better now. I have stability and my enemies no longer exist.” She raised her eyes to meet his. “I should feel better than I do.”

Sam shook his head. “There’s no should when it comes to this,” he said gently. “No one can know how they’re gonna react.”

The cup was hot between her hands and she looked back down at it. “I…” Her breath felt tight in her chest and it felt like a betrayal of Steve, of Barnes, of Natasha to say it. “I miss cryo.”

She could feel Sam’s eyes on her. “What part of it?” he asked.

She shook her head, not sure where to begin. “The quiet,” she finally said. “No dreams. No memories. Just quiet.” She laughed brokenly. “They tore away my identity, put in something else, froze me like a piece of meat, and I…I would let them do it again.”

The cup was shaking in her hands, and she didn’t see Sam move until he lifted it away to keep her from scalding herself. 

“It’s natural,” he said, closing his hands around hers so gently she could barely feel them. “Hell, it was your whole life for almost seventy years, Peggy. That’s a lot to deal with for anyone. It’s like muscle memory: the way things used to be.”

Her teeth were chattering and her eyes felt hot and wet. “I don’t want to think like that,” she whispered. “God, I don’t. I’ve been working so hard to…” Her words were tangled in every shaking breath. “I want to be me again. Myself. As I was. But the more pieces I pick up, the more cracks I find.”

His fingers were warm around hers. “Peggy,” he said, and his voice was modulated to the tone of someone breaking bad news. “There’s something you have to remember. The person you were, you can never be that person again. You’ve lived through too much, experienced too much, seen too much. You couldn’t be the same person, not after all that.” 

It was like a body blow, hearing the words. It was the truth, of course, and she knew that, she had always known it, but that was the one thing she had tried to hold onto: she was still Peggy Carter, that strong and indomitable woman that Steve had perhaps fallen in love with.

“Peggy Carter is dead, then,” she whispered. “The woman who fell.”

“No,” Sam said gently, squeezing her hands. “Peggy Carter is the foundation of who you are.” He lifted one of his hands to lightly touch her cheek, guiding her eyes up to look at him, then withdrew his hand. “Every strong structure needs a strong foundation. From what Steve tells me, you were one of the strongest people he’d ever met, and that’s saying something.”

She stared at him. “What good are strong foundations,” she said slowly, “if all you have to build with are fragments?”

He sat back. Not far, but far enough that he wasn’t crowding her. “That’s when you make something new,” he said. One side of his mouth turned up, self-deprecating. “But I think I’m running low on building metaphors now.”

She wrapped her arms around her knees, propping her chin on them. “It would be easier,” she said, her tone leaden, “to be closed away in ice. I…I think that may be why I’m drawn to it. Everything is so… difficult now. My memories. They’re erratic. Unfocussed.” Her hands curled around her calves through the blanket. “The Winter Soldier’s. Mine. Ours.”

“Fragments,” he agreed quietly. “You have two lives in your head. Your own and the one they wedged in there too. That’s a whole other level of bad.”

“It won’t ever go away, will it?” she said, though she already knew the answer from the way she could load a dozen different guns blindfolded, to the way she could slow her heart rate without even thinking about it, to the way she could kill with one hand with no effort. 

“Not entirely,” he agreed. “Even if it wasn’t you, your mind and body lived through all of that, and that makes it part of you now. It’s up to you whether it controls you or you control it.” He leaned a little closer. “It’s never gonna be easy, especially not after so long, but if you want to, you know you’re gonna have help every step of the way.”

She met his eyes, dark and sympathetic and in no way pitying. “I’m not very good at asking for help,” she confessed.

He reached out and swatted her on the arm. “What do you call this?”

One side of her mouth turned up, just a little. “A start.”

His face broke into a sunny grin. “Exactly.”


	34. Undaunted

"Good afternoon, Miss Carter."

Peggy looked up at the speaker habitually. "Good afternoon, Jarvis," she replied as the elevator doors closed. "Can you tell me where Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes are, please?"

There was a moment of silence. "They are in training room three on the eighteenth level. Would you like me to advise them of your arrival?"

Peggy shook her head. "No," she said. "Thank you. Is the viewing gallery open?"

"It can be made so," Jarvis replied.

She fell silent. Her hands were curled in her pockets. She felt tired, drained, from her conversation with Sam. It had helped, that much she knew, but to speak of things like that took so much of her energy and self-control. Sam wouldn't have minded if she broke down, but she was never very good at letting people see her emotions.

He'd driven her to Stark tower on her request, and told her he'd be in town overnight if she wanted to speak to him again. She didn't remember if she smiled or nodded or indicated that this was acceptable. He would have understood, regardless.

The elevator slid to a smooth halt on the eighteenth level.

The training rooms covered the whole level and were designed to challenge all of the team that Steve worked with. Some were assault courses. Other were designed for weapons practise. There was a firing range. Training room three was a basic gymnasium for practising hand-to-hand combat, with a viewing chamber just above it.

The door to the viewing chamber slid open as Peggy approached, and she made her way up the staircase. There were chairs there, and she had heard tales from Natasha of sitting in there with popcorn when Stark was trying out his new weapons arrays against Steve.

Peggy sat down in one of the seats, drawing it close to the glass, and looked down into the training room.

Barnes and Steve were sparring. She could see how confidently Steve was moving, a counterpoint to the wariness of Barnes. They both knew well enough how to fight, but their movements were slower, more careful than they had any need to be. She folded her hands together on the ledge below the window and propped her chin on them, watching.

Half an hour later, she shed her coat and boots, then rose from the chair. Her feet made no sound on the floor as she went down the staircase. The panel beside the training room door was illuminated, indicating the room was in use. She gazed at it, then spread her metal hand on the surface. The door slid aside silently.

The main body of the room was circled by another wall made of padding that would give under impact. It obscured the doorway, and muffled any sound from outside. A narrow passage ran all the way around the room, except the three openings that led into the training floor.

Neither Steve nor Barnes had noticed her entrance. That was her intent. She circled around the edge of the room, concealing herself by one of the openings, as Steve walked Barnes through yet another routine of basic exercises.

There, she waited until Barnes was thrown into a roll. He came up onto his feet, breathing hard, his back to her. That was when she attacked.

She struck him from behind, arms around his waist, as he was taking a step. The momentum brought him crashing to his face on the mat flooring. Peggy flipped over his flailing legs, coming up in a crouch, hands moving automatically into defence.

“Peggy?” Steve started towards her, ready to defend Barnes, but she held up one hand.

Barnes scrambled onto his back, sitting up. "Carter? What the hell?"

"You're holding back," she said, her voice low. She felt like she was being cruel. She was being cruel. But if she wasn’t, then she knew she would break. “I need to see what you’re capable of Barnes. Show me what you can do.”

He looked at Steve, but Peggy didn’t take her eyes off him. “Pegs…” he started again.

“Show me,” she whispered. Her voice felt brittle, so close to breaking point. She was so tired, and she needed to know he was strong enough. Steve was. Steve always was. But Barnes was like her, and like her, he could break. She couldn’t bear the thought of doing that to him again. “Please, James.”

He stared at her, and she knew he was seeing more than she wanted anyone to. He got up, onto his knees, then onto his feet. “I’ll spar with Steve. You can watch.”

“I did.” She shook her head. “Not enough. You both hold back.”

His eyes flicked to her arm. “And you wouldn’t?”

Her metal fingers twitched by her side. “You wouldn’t be able to tell,” she said quietly. “Show me.”

She could see the pulse flickering in his throat, faster. His breathing had quickened as well. He was afraid, and with good reason. He clenched and unclenched his hands once, twice, then nodded. “Okay, Pegs. Bring it on.”

“Peggy, are you sure this is a good idea?” Steve asked. He was watching her, she could feel it, and she risked a glance. His arms were folded over his chest and he looked worried. 

No. It wasn’t. But it had to be done regardless. 

Barnes was too afraid of his own strength to use it, and as long as he was holding back, he could be compromised. If he was incapable of making use of his strength, she could not ask what she wanted - needed - to ask of him.

“I can handle myself,” she said, moving towards the centre of the room. 

“That’s not what I asked,” Steve murmured. “Peggy…”

She held up her hand. “Necessity, Captain,” she said. “If… please could you stand aside.”

Steve looked between them, and only moved to the edge of the room when Barnes nodded curtly. It was good that he stayed. In case. She knew she would hold back as much as was necessary, but she and Barnes were both unpredictable. Sometimes, a fuse was cut short and chaos followed.

Barnes shifted from one foot to the other. “So how’re we…”

He kick caught him in the middle of the chest and he landed on his back. “Watch,” she said sharply. 

He pushed himself back to his feet, watching her warily. Better. Defensive. He brought his hands up to defend his centre. Good. She feinted left, but he was doing as she said. He watched her eyes and caught the blow from her right, blocking it. 

It was gentle at first, reminding him how to watch, pay attention, keep eyes on the enemy’s eyes and not on the distraction of their limbs.

She saw the tension loosen in his shoulders, growing more confident, more relaxed, and that was when she attacked in earnest. She saw the flash of panic in his eyes. He fought desperately. Some of his blocks were sloppy, wild, glancing off her limbs and barely blocking her. 

He could do it, she knew, and she bared her teeth in frustration. He could do it, but he just wasn’t. Not even when she caught him a sharp slap across his left ear that must have made his head ring. Not when she sliced his leg out from underneath him and continued the spin to kick him hard in the ribs as he fell. Not even when she flipped him so hard that he rolled across the floor to crash at Steve’s feet.

Steve leaned down to help him up, but Barnes ignored him.

His eyes were fixed on Peggy, and he lifted one hand to touch his lower lip. There was blood on his teeth. He looked at his fingertips, then back at her. “Seriously?” he said. “You don’t want me to hold back?”

She flexed her fingers. “I want to see what you can do,” she said. “Whatever you can do.”

He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Okay,” he agreed, his breathing ragged. “What I can do. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She smiled, but it was a fleeting expression. “You couldn’t, if you tried.”

He shifted his stance, and attacked.

What Steve had in bulk and power, Barnes made up for in guile and swiftness of foot. He was out of practice, that much she could tell, but the skills were there. He struck for her face, and when she blocked with one arm, he almost caught her by striking with both knee and his other fist at the same time. 

She caught his wrist, twisting his arm up behind him back. He folded, dropping so suddenly that she was pulled forward, and he used the momentum to roll them both, and only a kick beneath his sternum broke her free, to roll up onto her feet.

He had to learn how to fight her. Steve was always on the defensive, even when he attacked, but she always attacked, even when defending. It was instinct now. Protect the centre, shield the vulnerable parts, neutralise the assailant.

Her body was moving in motions drilled into her over the course of years in the forces and then with her handlers. Her blows were precisely placed, and she only pulled back in time from a kidney punch that might have crippled him for days. It was too easy, too sharp, to dangerous, and she had him by the throat, rammed up against the wall.

There was fear in his eyes, and she saw it.

Dear god.

Before she broke her grip, he kicked her legs out from beneath her, twisting his legs around hers and trapping her there, back arched, his hands around her wrist. Pinned. Subdued. Arm stretched to breaking point. Hand twisted up.

“We done?” he grunted.

“Yes,” she gasped out. “Good.”

They broke apart, falling away from each other, and she turned onto her belly, pressing her brow to her clenched fists. Control. She had almost completely lost control, slipped back into that role and those habits.

She flinched when a hand lightly touched her back. The hand withdrew at once. “You okay?” Steve asked quietly. The question could have been for either of them. 

Peggy nodded mutely into her fists.

“Damn, Carter,” Barnes panted. “I’m not going to be able to sit for a week.” He crawled over and sprawled down beside her. “You want to tell me what that was about?”

She took a shivering breath. “I need your help,” she whispered, not looking at either of them. “Both of you.”

Steve’s hand returned to her back, stroking gently from shoulder to tailbone. It was soothing and reassuring. “What do you need?”

She didn’t want to ask, but it was getting harder to come back from the missions, harder to deal with the memories, with only Natasha. She needed their presence at the end of the mission. She needed to know they were there. She needed them to keep the longing for the ice at bay.

“Help me finish it,” she whispered. “Help me find the other operatives and finish it.”


	35. Unsettle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note: I wrote all this before the recent developments in Ukraine. I did consider changing it, but this is only for a couple of chapters, and the political upheaval is still ongoing, so it kind of fits.

The sixth agent had been traced to Ukraine.

Given Lukin’s words, Peggy wasn’t surprised. Even if he was never able to send her, it wasn’t beyond her expectations that another of her kind would have been dispatched. After all, why send in an army and face international war when you could send in a precision weapon to deal with trouble-makers one by one?

Despite the political upheaval, accessing the country wasn’t difficult.

Natasha was with them and took charge of hiring a car at the airport. Each of them had a local alias, and they had booked rooms at one of Kiev’s middle-range hotels. Too upmarket, and questions might be asked. Too down-market and they could be compromised.

It felt strange to be seated beside Steve in the car, on a mission.

The last time they had been on a mission together had not ended well.

The car was caught up in rush hour traffic, and Peggy looked out of the window. She had been in Kiev before, more than once. She remembered a rooftop and a rifle, a single clean shot and the chaos that followed. No one ever looked at the bookish brunette walking from the scene. She tried to remember when that was, how long ago, but the memories were hazy. 

Blindly, she reached across to her right. Steve’s hand closed around hers, and she tightened her fingers on his.

Her focus has to be the present. Looking back at all the crimes she had committed would help no one. Letting them overwhelm her, to drive her back within herself, was allowing Zola and Hydra to win. 

Steve’s hand was warm and reassuring, and that was exactly why she had asked him to accompany her, and Barnes. They were strong enough to deal with an agent like her, but they were also stable enough to steady her when she faltered.

She didn’t speak for the remainder of the journey, not until they were in one of the two adjoining rooms that had been booked for them. She sat down on the edge of the bed, closed her eyes, and took a breath. 

“I killed a politician here,” she said abruptly. “Several years ago, I think.”

The bed shifted beside her and an arm was slung around her shoulder. Barnes.

“The Winter Soldier did,” he said.

“My hands,” she said. “It’s… uncomfortable to know that.” She looked up at Natasha, who was unpacking a collection of weapons on top of the chest of drawers. “Can you brief them?”

Natasha nodded. “Full clearance?”

Peggy nodded, rising. Steve was watching her with concern. She crossed the floor to him, and lifted her hand to touch his cheek. “I’m sorry for what you’re about to hear,” she said quietly, then turned and walked into the bathroom and closed and locked the door.

It was only fair, if he and Barnes were to join their mission, to know what would be done.

There could be no sugar-coating of the simple facts: she was still a killer. She had killed since her memories had returned, and would again. They had to be aware of what they might see, and what she might do.

It was close to half an hour before Steve tapped lightly on the door. “Peggy?”

She rose from the floor, where she was sitting, and unlocked the door. “So you know.”

He stepped closer to her and took her face gently between his hands. “You and Romanoff aren’t so different,” he said. “I’ve been working with her for the past two years. What makes you think hearing those things would change my mind about you?”

She looked up at him, her eyes stinging treacherously. Because you’re a good man, she wanted to reply. Because you’re decent and better than anything I deserve, and I can’t imagine why you would want to sully yourself with me.

“I don’t know,” she whispered the lie. 

He kissed her forehead. “We do what we have to, Peggy,” he said. 

She nodded, closing her eyes, and let him wrap her in his arms, just for a moment.

“Where are Barnes and Romanoff?” she murmured.

Steve’s chest rose and fell against her cheek. “Undercover,” he said. “They’ve gone to scout out the area. It’s just us for a little while.” His fingers combed through her hair, tousling the already wild curls. “You want to go out? Or stay in?”

She drew back enough to look up at him, and knew what she wanted. “Come with me,” she said quietly, leading him back into the room. There was a bed and a couch. She went to the latter, sitting down, and he sat down beside her, close enough to touch, but not oppressively. 

It was pure indulgence that made her lean closer to him, and more so to kiss him. Just light, soft, careful little kisses, barely anything at all. It was innocent and it was gentle, and he smiled against her lips, his arms slipping around her. 

Tomorrow, they would hunt and she would have blood on her hands again, but for now, his lips were warm against hers, his arms were strong around her, and her breath was mingling with his. It was comforting and human and far away from the cold that tugged at her when her thoughts strayed to darker paths.

By the time Barnes and Romanoff returned, Steve was reclined on the couch, and Peggy was halfway to sleep against his chest. Her lips felt swollen and tender from prolonged kissing. She felt warm and at peace, despite what was to come. Steve knew what she would have to do. Steve accepted and understood and loved her regardless. It amazed and terrified her.

“News?” Steve murmured, not lifting his hand from Peggy’s hair.

“There’s another protest expected in two days,” Natasha said, slouching down on the bed, propping herself up on her elbows. “A few of their interim politicians are expected to be there.”

“Is it in the plaza?” Peggy murmured without opening her eyes.

“Same place as in the photographs,” Natasha confirmed. “Plenty if angles for a clean shot.”

Peggy traced the button on Steve’s shirt with her fingertip, her eyes still closed. She had studied the more recent maps of the area and extensive photographs of the main plaza on the flight from New York. 

“There’s a building opposite,” she murmured. “Offices, mostly, but there was one that looked like it was unused.”

She heard the rattle of Barnes opening out the laptop and flicking through the images. “Which one?”

“Sixth floor, third window in from the right hand side. There’s too much dust inside the glass for it to be in use.”

There was a moment of silence. “Jesus, Peg,” he said. “How’d’you remember that?”

She reluctantly opened her eyes. “I was trained to choose locations,” she said. “It’s not the most secure site, but if there’s a timetable for the speakers and they can do it quickly and be on the move again, it’s a good choice.”

“No timetable,” Natasha said, looking at her phone. “Looks like they’re playing by ear.”

Peggy sat up slowly. Steve’s hand was low on her back, a solid, warm support. “No. No, they wouldn’t go with a sniper,” she said, closing her eyes again as she considered the options, the targets, the terrain. Her hands twitched by her sides. “I think they might go accidental. They don’t want to declare war. They want to destabilise. Accidental would do that.” She opened her eyes. “We need to find the place where the key target is staying.”

It was easier said than done. Natasha put in some calls and Barnes sent out some messages on the computer. She let them do the work she couldn’t, and went over to the array of weapons, spreading them out and examining them.

She felt Steve’s approach a moment before his hands came to rest on her shoulders. “We should take a break,” he said. “Somewhere away from weapons and missions.”

She lifted her fingertips to her lips. “We did,” she whispered. “I can’t afford more, Steve. Not yet. Not until it’s finished.”

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “We’ll get our dance one day,” he said.

“I’ll look forward to it,” she murmured, leaning back into him. With him there beside her, she could almost believe it would happen.


	36. Understudy

Peggy's assumption proved to be correct.

It took a day, but Natasha found the hotel. She took Steve and Barnes to watch the perimeter. Peggy infiltrated in the guise of another guest, and then as a member of hotel staff in a stolen uniform. It was almost embarrassingly easy to bypass the security team.

The politician had returned from a meeting some fifteen minutes earlier, retreating to the room for an hour of respite.

Peggy slipped into the room, carrying an armful of towels under the guise of housekeeping. She only intended to scout the room, but the woman was lying on the bed, and didn't stir. Peggy's heart skipped a beat. 

It was possible she was already too late. 

Her eyes flicked around, but there was no trace of anyone else in the room, the curtains billowing in the breeze from the open window. She ran lightly across the floor, touching her fingertips to the woman's throat. There was a pulse, but it was thready, and she could see the tint of blue in the woman's lips.

Smothered.

But for it to look like an accident, there would have to be a tangible cause.

She looked around, taking in the features of the room. The heater was gas-powered. She hurried across the floor, crouching down, and scanned the metal. There was a narrow crack in the piping and she put her fingers to it. The pressure of escaping gas was tangible.

Peggy swore under her breath, then swung around at a click as the balcony door closed, the long curtains shifting. There was a flicker of a shadow there, outside the glass.

She ran to the doors, pulling them wide. The balcony overlooked a courtyard some eight feet wide, balconies lining the walls. A crack of a gunshot made her flinch down, and between the supports of the balustrade, she could see shape of someone darting through a doorway on the balcony opposite, one level down.

From the hallway, she could hear the pounding of fists on the door, people demanding entry.

Her head was throbbing. The gas.

She backed up into the room, to the door, breathed in, then ran and leapt. She hit the balcony directly opposite, the impact on her ribs driving the air from her lungs. Her assailant had used a grapple line, and it was still there. She caught it, sliding down, and swung herself inwards to drop onto the lower balcony.

She heard shouts from above, and dived through the open door, rolling to avoid gunshots from the security team. It was quite typical, she thought, that she was being held accountable for something she hadn't done. 

The room she was in was dark, but her assailant was already gone. She knew from the fact that she was not shot on impact.

"We're too late," she whispered into her comm. "Target is on the move in the north side. In pursuit. Keep your eyes on exits."

She rose, darting across the room to the door of the room. The hallway was a mirror of the other side of the hotel, a long corridor lined with doors. Her eyes darted around. There were traces of dust from the balcony on the carpet, faint, but enough to show her the direction to follow. 

At the end of the hall, there were only two options: elevator or stairs.

No sensible assassin would use an elevator. It was closing yourself in a trap. There was also the waiting factor, and the elevator was on the lowest level. She pushed open the doorway that led to the stairs cautiously, listening.

Footfalls were barely audible, five levels down. 

"North central staircase," she breathed, pressing back against the wall and reaching beneath her blouse. "Descending." She unhooked a length of grappling wire from beneath her blouse, looping it around the handrail. Securing it, she wrapped the cord around her metal arm, swung her legs over the banister and dropped. The wire cut through the fabric of her blouse, hissing against the plates of her arm, and she saw the flash of a face below and metal of a gun rising. 

She swung inwards, dropping off the line, and landed heavily on the stairs. A gunshot cracked through the air from below. She leaned back against the wall. Her assailant was one level below. She moved slowly sideways down the staircase, her footsteps almost silent.

"Matryoshka?"

Peggy drew a slow breath. "Yes," she murmured in Russian.

"You were also sent? For this target?"

Peggy eased down two more steps. "That is not your prerogative," she said, her voice adjusted to the low rasp that had been the Winter Soldier's: disused and hoarse. "The target lives. Her guards were alerted by your weapon."

She heard her subordinate curse under her breath, overlaid by Steve's murmur in her ear.

"We're at the foot of the staircase."

Three levels further down, then.

She breathed the number, hoping he would understand, then crabbed slowly sideways down the staircase. She saw the jut of the barrel over the railing, the blonde hair, a sliver of the girl’s face. The gun fired, missing her by centimetres, the bullet boring into the wall behind her.

“I would stay where you are, Matryoshka.”

Peggy’s heart was racing. “You are not ordered to terminate me,” she said coldly.

Number six shook her head. “Not when they say you are already dead,” she said. “There is much more value in taking you alive.”

Peggy raised her hands. “I am unarmed, Yelena Belova,” she said. “At your mercy.” She took a step closer to the railings. She lowered her hands to rest them on the banister, staring down at Belova’s face coolly. “Take me, if you can.”

To Belova’s credit, she kept the gun trained on Peggy’s heart. “Step down,” she said. “Slowly.”

Peggy complied, keeping her hands spread on either side. Belova’s blue eyes were narrowed with speculation, and Peggy saw the flicker of movement a second too late. 

A magnetic EMP was tossed across the space between them. It snapped onto her metal arm and the power surged. Her arm locked, shuddering, and she hissed through her teeth, grabbing at the pulser with her other hand. Even though she wrenched it off, her arm was useless for a moment, and that was the last thing she needed.

“Well-played,” she said, taking another step down, then another, until she was at the landing above Belova. “A new trick.”

“A bite,” Belova said darkly. “You weren’t my only teacher.”

“Below,” Steve breathed in her ear. “Say when.”

Peggy kept her eyes fixed on Belova, holding her attention. They needed a reason to move, and they had to be able to do it without Belova simply turning the gun on them. It was true that Steve could heal and Barnes was likely to have similar abilities, but it wasn’t a theory she wanted to test.

So she did the simplest thing and hurled herself onto Belova and her gun.

The surprise of such a stupid action meant that she manage to deflect the muzzle before Belova even thought to pull the trigger. The bullet gouged a curl of flesh from her side as they both crashed down the stairs. Belova dropped her gun and grabbed at Peggy’s face instead, forcing her head back.

They hit the wall on the lower landing and Peggy kicked up, slamming Belova back off her, bringing her down hard on her back on the stairs. 

It wasn’t enough to keep her down, and the only reason Belova didn’t catch Peggy with another blow was because Natasha was there, her hand snaking through the railings and grabbing Belova’s ankle, jerking her leg out from beneath her. Belova caught herself on the banister, flipping herself over to land on the opposite side of the staircase. 

She froze there, hands half-raised. “Natalia Romanovna?”

Peggy took the opening to kick out, catching Belova across the back and knocking her off-balance again, but the woman was one of the best she’d ever trained, catching herself and pulling a second gun from her belt. It was turned on Peggy, who blocked with her left and punched up with her right, as Steve leapt up over the banister, and grabbed at Belova’s arm, twisting it up and away. He tore the gun from her hand, folding when she brought a leg up in a back kick that caught him between the legs.

Belova turned blazing eyes on Peggy. “You bring friends now?” she snarled. There was blood on her lips, and she swung around with a backhand that would have taken anyone else’s head off. Natasha bent over backwards to avoid it, grabbing the wrist as the fist hissed by her face and jerking. Belova stumbled down a step, and Peggy lunged, grappling her as Natasha kicked the woman’s legs out from beneath her.

It was like fighting a wildcat. Belova was lithe and nimble and twisted out of their hold, striking Peggy in the face and Natasha hard in the belly, enough to wind her. Steve caught her by the legs, squeezing tight enough to make her cry out. Peggy caught her right arm, Natasha her left, until she was pulled almost cruciform in the staircase, cursing and panting.

Peggy stared into the face of the woman who had replaced Natasha, the woman whom she had broken just as much as she had shattered Romanoff.

Belova stared defiantly back at her, twisting her arm in Peggy’s grip, almost to the point of breaking. “You have turned, heh? You work with the Americans now? Just another master, another set of chains?” She shook her head. “If you don’t kill me, you know who my next target will be, Matryoshka.”

She was right.

Peggy knew why they had come, but when she looked at the woman before her, she couldn’t help seeing the woman beyond her. Belova might have become Natasha, with another roll of the dice or turn of the deck. Belova was the same as Natasha, and she could not have killed Natasha, not now. 

Belova could see it too, and she was smiling, dark and mocking, and dear god, it would have been so much easier to shoot her from a distance, without speaking to her or acknowledging her.

Peggy swallowed hard.

“We can’t let you go,” she said - in English? Russian? Neither? - her voice as hoarse and thick as it ever had been as the Winter Soldier. Her hands were shaking.

Belova bared her teeth. “But you don’t have the balls to kill me,” she hissed.

“Peggy,” Steve gritted out through clenched teeth. 

The sound of a gunshot echoed in the staircase, ringing off the walls.

Belova sagged suddenly in her grip. There was a perfect, neat hole in her right temple, a spatter of blood and bone over her left shoulder. 

Peggy stared blankly at her, releasing her grip. Belova folded and tumbled down the last few stairs to the next landing. She fell in a motionless heap at Barnes’ feet. He was holding his gun tightly in both hands, and he was ashen. 

Steve was by Peggy’s side suddenly, his hand under her elbow, and she hadn’t realised how unsteady she felt until he was there.

“Why?” she whispered hoarsely. “Why did you do that, Barnes?”

Barnes was still holding the gun tightly between his hands, in front of his chest. “So you didn’t have to,” he said.

Peggy’s lips parted in a small, breathless sound. She looked up at Steve, who squeezed her arm, nodded. She stumbled down the staircase, knocking the gun out of Barnes’ hands and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. Her face felt wet and hot, and his breath was coming out in shivering gusts against her skin.

“Thank you, Bucky,” she whispered.


	37. Unthinking

With some help from Natasha's contacts, they managed to avoid notice and drive across the country in a series of different cars to slip across the border into Poland. 

They only stopped briefly in small towns to change cars and once in the middle of nowhere to tend their array of wounds. Peggy didn't have the wits to query where the cars were sourced. It was all she could do to force her thoughts from Belova. 

She sat in silence as Bucky stitched the wound in her side. Natasha and Steve both checked their own injuries, but she could feel their eyes on her. She was being too quiet, and she knew it concerned them. 

As they continued on their way, she was flanked by either Steve or Bucky for the remainder of the journey, until they reached the assigned safehouse in Zamosc. They talked to her of other things, drawing her into stilted conversations, keeping her mind from darker paths.

Neither of them knew what she had discussed with Sam, but Steve had seen her at the refrigerator, and he must have suspected.

He held her hand as Natasha led them up the narrow staircase into the apartment. It was small and chilly, little more than a studio, and clearly had been unused for some time. She saw Steve look at Bucky, who nodded and went to speak to Natasha. They slipped into the small kitchenette, out of sight. 

Peggy made her way over to the bed, sitting down on the edge, Steve beside her. 

"How you holding up?" he asked.

She shook her head, looking blankly down at their linked hands. "I don't know," she said. "I... can't tell yet." She wrapped her metal hand around their linked hands and took a shaking breath. "She could have been like Romanoff. She was the same, when she was handed to me." Her chest was aching. "I did that to her, Steve. I turned her into that."

"Because they did that to you," he said quietly. "You would never have done anything like that, if they hadn't got to you first." He drew his hand from hers and put his arm around her shoulder. "And they have minds of their own too. Natasha made a choice. So did that woman. You didn't control that. They had a choice. You didn't."

She nodded, closing her eyes. He always knew the words she needed to hear, words she would not have thought of herself. "Thank you," she said, barely a breath.

He pressed his lips to her brow. "Glad to help," he murmured.

She rested her head on his shoulder, feeling his warmth ebb through her. He was always so warm, the serum charging his body until it could survive in almost any environment. It was comforting and it was steady and he was here, and present, and she could focus on that.

Seeking his warmth was good, far better than looking to the cold. She pressed her right hand to his thigh, kneading at the muscle as he stroked his hand slowly up and down her metal arm, the sensors flaring at his touch.

"Peggy..." he said, his voice a shade lower than usual.

She turned her head to look up at him, and couldn't be sure which of them brought their lips together. Her right hand rose of it's own accord to cup his chin as he kissed her, her fingers sliding along his jaw and curving behind his head. It wasn't urgent or wild, but it made her breathing quicken and her heart race. 

The sensation that they were being watched made her pull back, her cheeks flushed.

"Told you," Bucky said. "Leave them alone for five minutes..."

"Shut up, Buck," Steve said fondly. His arm slipped down around her waist, his hand spreading on her hip. She smiled briefly, nuzzling the tip of her nose against his, before looking back towards their companions.

Natasha was wiping dust from a cup. "We've got the gas working," she said. "The kettle should be boiling soon." She shot Peggy a careful look. "I figure we could all do with hot drinks."

"I don't know, Nat," Bucky said, cocking his head. "She's looking pretty warm, right now."

Peggy could feel her cheeks getting redder. "Bugger off, Barnes," she said, even though she was almost smiling as she said it.

He meandered across the floor and sat down on her other side. The bed creaked ominously beneath them as he leaned closer and pecked her on the forehead. "You look better than you did last time you came home," he said.

She moved her left hand to touch his thigh lightly. That was what she had hoped, that their presence would anchor her As much as unpleasant thoughts - memories of her lessons with Belova and the screams and blood - were crowding in on her, both Steve and Bucky were there to help her push them back.

"I think," Bucky said, covering her hand with his, "that we should try pierogi."

"Again?" Steve said. "Buck, we tried them last time we were here and they weren't all that great."

Bucky's arm crossed behind Steve's around her back and he tweaked at her waist. "Pegs, would you be a doll and remind Captain Obstinate that last time we were here, it was seventy years ago, and I think they won't taste like sawdust this time."

She couldn't help smiling slightly. "He may well be right, Captain," she murmured. "After all, there was a war on."

"For someone whose such a homebody," Steve grumbled good-naturedly, "you like trying different food a bit too much." He squeezed Peggy's side. "You hungry?" When she hesitated, he leaned closer and nuzzled her brow. "How about Natasha and I go and get some food and we see what you can manage when we get back?"

She nodded, leaning into him. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," he said as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You get to sit Bucky."

"Hey!" Bucky said indignantly. "I'm not a badly-trained dog."

Steve winked at Peggy, then slipped his arm out from beneath Bucky's. "We'll be back as soon as we can."

Bucky remained where he was, his arm around her waist, as Steve and Natasha headed out the door. He tilted his head, until his temple resting against hers. "You're going to have to eat, y'know."

Peggy nodded. "I'll try," she murmured, watching as he brought his free hand over to cover hers, his scarred fingers covering the metal joints of her hand. Even when he was calm, she'd noticed there was always a slight tremor in his hands. Now, they were almost steady. "Bucky?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you do that? At the hotel?"

"You know why," he murmured, tilting his head, his words a whisper against her brow. "Pegs, you've done enough. You don't need more blood on your hands."

She pressed her eyes closed. "But now, it's on yours."

He drew back and lifted his hand to cup her chin, tilting her face to his. "What I saw," he said, "was a killer who would have come after my friends if she'd got away, after she beat all three of you bloody. What I heard was someone threatening the people I care about. What I did was keep you all safe. It's war, Peggy. It's what we do."

Peggy searched his face, then leaned up and kissed him lightly on the cheek in gratitude. "You are a very stupid brave man, Sergeant Barnes," she said.

His fingers curled against the corner of her jaw. "You forgot handsome," he teased. 

"Cocky."

"Dashing."

"Smug."

"Intelligent."

"Deluded," she countered, smiling as he kissed her firmly on the mouth. It was chaste and it was childish and it was done to make her laugh. "I don't call that a valid argument," she said when he drew back.

He looked offended. “I thought it was pretty damn good.” He searched her face, his fingertips still warm and smooth against her jaw. “Pegs, I have to ask you something: if we go after the last one, all of us, are you going to be okay?”

She wanted to reply that it was the mission. It was a job to be done. It was her role and her duty and her goal. She wanted to sound confident. She wanted to be able to lie as easily to him as she had to the people she was spying on in the past.

“No.”

Bucky nodded, as if he’d known that would be the answer. He knocked his forehead gently against hers. “But you’re still going to do it, aren’t you?”

She shifted, turning closer into him, and wrapped her arm around his middle. “I have to,” she whispered. “You know I have to see it done.”

His hand on her back moved in slow, comforting circles. “Yeah.” He drew her closer, practically lifting her up to curl in his lap, holding her tight. Her metal arm rested against his shoulders, and she let her right hand thread into his hair, warm and soft and not as thick as it had been in his youth. “Steve gets it too. And Nat. They don’t want to see you hurting.”

She took an unsteady breath. “Lance the wound,” she said. “Drain the poison.”

His thumb stroked her cheek. “That’s what I thought,” he said, then nuzzled the tip of her nose with his own. “And break the arms of everyone who tries to stop you.”

She smiled weakly. “If I must.”

He made a show of pulling his arms back, and earned himself a pinch to the earlobe. “Ow!”

“A warning, sergeant,” she said with warm reproof. She looked in the direction of the kitchen, where the kettle was hissing. “I suppose we should use that.”

“You’re letting a long-standing stereotype down,” he said reproachfully. “I thought you would have been like Pavlov’s dog for a cup of tea when you heard a kettle boiling.”

She flicked him across the ear, earning another yelp. “I’ll have you know there’s more to England than tea,” she said.

He looked up at her with a grin. “But now that I’ve mentioned it, you want one?”

Her lips thinned to a line, but she still got up. “It would not be unwelcome,” she said. “If you can make it correctly.”

He pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll make it,” he said, “and you supervise.”


	38. Undisturbed

There was little rest to be had that night.

Peggy spent the night tucked between Steve's back and the wall of the house, her arm around his waist, her brow between his shoulders, but she couldn't sleep. While she whispered to him to get some sleep, she knew he wouldn't. He wouldn't leave her alone with her demons.

Bucky has a blanket on the floor, and dozed, but Peggy heard his breathing stutter, and the sharp intake as he woke suddenly in the darkness. In front of her, Steve leaned down over the edge of the bed, and she could make out Bucky's hand grasping at his arm.

"You okay, Buck?" Steve whispered.

Bucky just patted at his arm, then lay back down, taking deep breaths.

Only Natasha got any sleep, or if she didn't, she was doing a very good job of pretending.

They left the safe house before dawn, heading north-west. Steve took the wheel, with Natasha in the passenger seat. She wasn't surprised when Bucky lay down on his side in the back seat beside her, folding his legs up tight to his chest, his head coming to rest in her lap. 

She hesitated, then carefully drew her metal fingers through his hair, smoothing it back from his brow. By the light of day, she could see the strands of silver in the dark hair. Perhaps they had all three lived as long as he had, but, he had experienced every moment of it, and it showed.

"Stark's got a plane waiting for us in Warsaw," Natasha said when they were safely on the motorway. She was looking at her phone. "He also wants us to stop in at the tower when we get back."

Bucky opened his eyes. "He say why?"

Natasha shook her head, looking back at him. "Just to check in."

Bucky groaned, covering his eyes with one hand. "Shit."

"He worries about you, Buck," Steve said, but Peggy could hear that he was smiling.

"That's why I didn't tell him I was coming," Bucky mumbled behind his hand. 

Steve almost swung around in his seat. "You didn't what?"

"Eyes on the road, Rogers!" Natasha exclaimed.

Steve looked back around. "God, Bucky, no wonder he wants a home visit."

Bucky sat up. "Hey, he's the one who didn't let me know he was still alive when that crazy bastard went after him," he said. "Didn't want to worry me, he said. Had enough to deal with, with friends coming back from the dead, he said. Call this turn about."

Peggy looked between them. "I don't understand," she said. 

Bucky flopped back in the seat beside her, his head resting against the back. "You heard about New York," he said. "Tony didn't... deal well with it, and decided not to bother telling me about it until he has a complete breakdown and challenged a goddamned terrorist to a game of missile-chicken."

"In his defence," Steve said, "you weren't in great shape yourself."

Bucky scowled. "That's not the point and you know it," he said. 

Peggy could see Natasha and Steve exchanging looks. She looked sidelong at Bucky, then silently reached out and put her hand over his. He glanced down at their hands, then tilted his fingers to curl around hers.

"It's all bullshit," he said, his voice brittle, "when you want to protect someone, but you can't. I could this time, and I did."

“Buck…” Steve said.

“Don’t start,” Bucky said quietly. “Carter’s the first one who didn’t try and wrap me in cotton wool.” His hand tightened around hers and he looked at her with a wan smile. “We’re both screwed up, but we’ll get there.”

“Both?” Natasha snorted. “Try all. We should have buttons and a clubhouse.”

Even Bucky had to laugh at that.

Peggy leaned against his shoulder companionably, and he drew his hand free to put his arm around her. Safe there, and warm, she closed her eyes, listening as Steve and Natasha debated the direction they should take, and Bucky hummed under his breath. 

In the quiet of the night, she couldn’t sleep, but now, without the silence and with the warmth of their chatter, she let herself drift for a little while. 

Steve was the one to wake her. He murmured her name and when her eyelids flickered, he brushed his fingertips against hers. It was gentle and it was safe and it was him, and she blinked sleepily at him, then smiled.

She was unsurprised to find Bucky hadn’t moved, his arm still loose around her. The last two times she had woken in his presence, it hadn’t ended well.

“We good?” he said quietly.

She sat up, nodding. “I’m sorry,” she said, as he lowered his arm. “It must feel quite numb by now.”

He flexed his fingers. “It’s been a lot worse,” he said. He nodded out of the window of the car. “Our chariot awaits. Tony didn’t skimp.”

Peggy let Steve help her out the car, wincing as the blood rushed back to limbs that had been folded up and still for too long. It was a far too familiar sensation. The scent of jet fuel and the cold wind hit her. They were on the tarmac outside a private hangar, and the Stark jet was sitting there. She stared at it.

“Is that a plane or a stealth bomber?” she asked suspiciously.

“Knowing Tone,” Bucky said, hauling the packs out of the boot of the car, “it could be either or both.”

While the plane wouldn’t have looked out of place in a war zone, black and polished and all sharp, aerodynamic angles, inside it looked more like Stark Tower. There were cushioned chairs and a plush sofa. A screen was set up on one wall, and there were even a couple of small bedrooms.

“You should get some rest,” Steve said, as Peggy shed her heavy coat. “There are private rooms. You won’t be disturbed.”

He was right, of course. Three days and barely any rest were catching up with her, but she didn’t want to be entirely alone.

“I’ll leave the door open,” she said. “Just in case.”

He touched her cheek gently. “Want me to wake you for food?”

Even though she had no appetite, she nodded. “I think it would be a good idea,” she agreed, then rose on her toes to kiss him. It was natural now, and every time their lips met, a pleasant shiver ran through her. “Like you did in the car. That was… easier. Better.”

He smiled, and his eyes shone. “You’re getting there, Peggy.”

The smile came in response without thought or effort. Perhaps, she was getting better after all, a little at a time. Waking without striking someone, eating after a mission, and even the thought of cryo was only an afterthought.

“Perhaps,” she agreed, then withdrew to the back of the plane to one of the rooms. She sat down on the edge of the bed, testing the surface with her fingertips. Of course it was soft and rich and everything a man who could buy anything would get.

“You’ve been sent to bed too, huh?” 

She looked up to see Barnes in the doorway. “Steve thought it was a good idea.”

“Mm. Nat for me,” he said. “Apparently, I get grouchy when I don’t sleep.”

She smiled tiredly. “I hadn’t noticed a difference,” she said. She reached out with her right hand, and he caught and squeezed her fingers. “They’re not wrong about the rest, though. You should sleep.”

His smile was as weary as her own. “Yes, mom,” he said. 

He left her, as she lay down on the bed, drawing legs and arms up closer to her body. The bed was too soft for her tastes, after years of hardship and comfortable weeks sleeping on the solid body of Steve’s couch, but when you were exhausted, you took what was available.

Peggy wrapped both arms around a pillow, drawing it closer, and pretend that she was resting her head on Steve’s chest. 

She couldn’t ask it of him again, not when he was probably going to sleep himself in the armchair, but she could hold onto the knowledge that she was welcome to embrace him when they were both more rested.

When she closed her eyes, she was smiling.


	39. United

There was a helicopter waiting for them at the airport when they landed.

“God damn it,” Bucky groaned, peering out through one of the windows.

“You brought this on yourself,” Steve said.

Peggy hid a smile. “It’s sweet that he’s so concerned,” she said. 

Despite Bucky’s huffing and protests as the plane came into land, she could see that he was privately pleased too. It didn’t stop him complaining all the way into the helicopter or the full duration of the flight back to Stark tower.

“I’ll take off from here,” Natasha said, as they disembarked. “You let me know if Barnes survives Stark.”

Peggy looked back in surprise, as Steve and Bucky headed towards the main doors. “You’re not staying?”

“You’ve got enough to keep you busy, Carter,” the other woman said with a grin, “and I have a date.”

“And you failed to mention this before, because?”

“Because people would ask questions,” Natasha replied, laughing. She nodded to the pilot. “I don’t think you’ve met Barton before.”

The pilot tilted up his sun visor. “Hey.”

Peggy could remember his face, though she couldn’t place where she had seen him. She nodded in greeting. “I’ll let you be on your way,” she said. “I had best go in and prevent any bloodshed.” She stepped back. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Natasha’s eyes gleamed. “Now there’s a high bar to reach,” she said as she slid the door closed. Peggy stepped back to a safe distance and watched the helicopter take to the air again. She saw Natasha raise her hand in farewell and raised her own in response.

“She avoiding a scene?” Bucky inquired lightly as Peggy joined them at the elevator.

“Something of the kind,” Peggy replied. She slipped her hand into Steve’s, his fingers warm around hers. 

He’d woken her in the plane, half an hour before they landed, just as gently as in the car. She wasn’t sure if it was his voice or his careful touch, but it made such a difference, to wake with peace instead of pain and nightmares.

“Welcome back, Captain Rogers. Agent Carter.” Jarvis’ voice was as cool and polite as ever.

“What am I? Chopped Liver?” Bucky said indignantly.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Jarvis said, “who are you?”

“Very funny,” Bucky grumbled.

Peggy looked up at Steve uncertainly. “Is that…?”

“Completely normal,” Steve replied, squeezing her hand. He gave her a reassuring smile. “If Tony is letting me in the building, then we’re good. He knows the deal: if he blocks one of us, he has to block both of us, and he would never seriously block Bucky.”

“Yet,” Bucky said. “There’s always a first time.”

The elevator came to a smooth halt on a floor Peggy had never visited. “Which level is this?” she asked.

“This,” Bucky said, “would be Tony’s private penthouse.” He took a breath, then stepped out of the doors.

“Maybe I shouldn’t…” Peggy began.

“If we’re on this level,” Steve said, drawing her forward, “that’s because Stark brought us here. It means you’re welcome.”

They didn’t get further than three paces from the elevator, because Bucky had come to a dead halt in front of them, his hands clenched by his sides. Stark was sitting on the couch, facing the door, his arms spread along the back, and for a moment, he looked as stern as his father ever had at the mission briefings in London.

“So you’re all alive,” Stark said. “Captain. Carter. You.”

Bucky snorted. “Mature, Tone.”

Stark drummed his fingers on the back of the couch. “We had a talk, not so long ago. More a yell, really.” He was looking up at the ceiling. “You. Yelling at me. A lot. About how important it was to tell people things. The people who care about you, specifically. Before doing stupid suicidal missions. You were very clear about that.” Stark lowered his head and looked at Bucky. A muscle in his cheek was twitching. “Is this ringing any bells or is the senility finally starting to get to you?”

“And if I’d told you, what would you have done?” Bucky said. “Got wound up again?”

Stark sat up a little straighter. He looked angry, but Peggy was good at reading people and could see that it wasn’t true anger. It was more fear than anything else. “I would have known, if anything went wrong,” he snapped. “Yeah, sure, I’d worry.” His voice almost broke. “But you want me to get that goddamned phone call again, out of nowhere?”

It was like someone cut the wires holding Bucky tense. He released a long breath, and held out a hand. “Tone…”

Stark got up, and both men walked towards each other. The force of their hug was almost violent, and Peggy could see how tightly Stark’s hands clung to Bucky’s back. Bucky hugged him just as hard, one hand at the back of Stark’s head, as if he was a kid. 

Even from across the room, she could hear Bucky’s unsteady whispered apologies. She forced her attention away and averted her face. It was something that felt private and familial, and it was something she had no part in.

She didn’t need to be told what phone call Stark was referring to. She could guess the cause.

“I don’t think I should be here,” she said in a whisper to Steve, her hand too tight around his. Her heart was beating a little too hard, and she couldn’t look at them. They were a family, all that was left after her presence had destroyed the rest. “I shouldn’t be.”

“I heard that,” Stark said. His voice was unsteady, but audible. She reluctantly looked over to see him push back from Bucky, one hand still on Bucky’s shoulder. “I’m still mad at you, Uncle Buck,” he warned, then looked at Peggy. “You’re all staying for dinner.”

It was one thing to accept medical and scientific care from the man. It was another to be expected to sit at the table with him, as if she had the right to be there. 

Her breathing was coming too quick, and Steve put his arm around her shoulder, his other hand keeping a hold of hers. “It’s okay, Peggy,” he murmured. “It’s okay. He’s inviting you. Not the Winter Soldier. You’re okay.”

“If it helps,” Stark added, “wasn’t my idea. This is on Pepper. She says we need to have ‘family’ time.” He dropped air quotes with his fingers. He offered Peggy a quick, wry smile. “This is as weird for me as it is for you.”

She tried to smile, leaning into Steve. “I expect so,” she said stiffly.

Stark looked at Bucky, then called out, “Jarvis, tell Pepper it’s safe. She can let me out now. Or come in. Or whatever. I’ve got someone here she needs to persuade to stay for dinner, because I’m freaking her out.”

Peggy had to press her cheek to Steve’s chest, to draw some comfort from the beat of his heart. She was still there when the elevator opened behind them, and light footsteps emerged on the polished floor.

“Hey. You must be Peggy.” 

Peggy forced herself to look up, meeting the eyes of another woman, who was looking at her with concern. She was a red head, a softer shade than Natasha. Everything about her was softer than Natasha: smile, eyes, the clothes she wore. Kind was the first word that came to mind, looking at her. 

Peggy took a breath and made herself straighten up. “Yes,” she said, habitually offering her hand. “Margaret Carter. Peggy.”

The woman’s smile brightened. “Virginia Potts,” she said, taking Peggy’s hand at once. Even her hand was soft, her skin cool and smooth. “Or, you know, Pepper. Most people just call me Pepper now.” She squeezed Peggy’s hand. “I didn’t mean for our invitation…”

“Your,” Stark piped up. “Your invitation. I don’t do group hugs and sing-songs.”

“Our,” Pepper repeated firmly, “invitation to upset you. James is important to Tony, and I know you and Steve are important to James…” She gave Peggy’s hand another gentle squeeze. “If it’s a problem, don’t worry. Maybe another time.”

“Or we could just put a bag on Tony’s head,” Bucky offered. “That way, you don’t have to look at his mug.”

Stark punched him on the shoulder, and despite herself, Peggy smiled a little. She had a feeling Stark wouldn’t want to let Bucky out of his sight right away, and she didn’t want to be the one to pull Steve away from his friends.

“Perhaps,” she said carefully, “we can see how it goes?”

Pepper’s face lit up, and she stepped closer, slipping her arm through Peggy’s. “And we can finally get to know each other,” she said. “I’ve been so excited to meet you since Steve told us about you, but Tony said you didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Hey! No tattling to Agent Grandma!” Stark said indignantly.

Peggy looked at him in confused surprise. “Agent Grandma?”

Stark blinked at her, as if he hadn’t intended to say anything. “Well, yeah,” he said finally. “I’ve got my Uncle Buck, and then he brought along Captain Grandpa, and since you’re kind of as old as he is, Agent Grandma kinda fits.” One side of his mouth turned up, cautious. “If it’s not a problem.”

Agent Grandma.

As simple as that, she was now a part of his extended adopted family of misfits.

“No,” she said, the tightness in her chest loosening. “I think it fits quite well.”


	40. Unabated

The meal was pleasant.

Awkward, yes, but pleasant.

Bucky and Stark talked. Or perhaps, more accurately, bickered and argued and teased their way through the meal. The years dropped away from Bucky when he reached over and swatted Stark across the head, as if he was a child in need of chastisement. 

Pepper was charming and she spoke readily to Peggy about what things were like when she joined the SSR and when she first met Steve.

That was safe ground, and Peggy picked at the last of her food while she spoke about Steve's first days with their agency, and made Tony laugh until he was gasping at the image of Steve suspended upside down on the assault course netting.

"It wasn't that funny, Tony," Steve said. 

Beneath the table, Peggy's hand was curled in his. She knew she was gripping too tightly, but with every word she said, she came closer to the days when she worked with Stark's father. Steve knew it too. His thumb was moving in soothing circles on the back of her palm.

"I beg to differ, Cap," Stark said, grinning. "Was he really as short as the pictures?"

"Mm. And as thin." She looked at Steve, who always seemed to understand her moods. He nodded, and she looked back at Stark and Pepper. "I'm sorry, but I-I need to go now." She rose and Steve with her. "It's been... nice, but..."

"Don't worry," Pepper interrupted before she could stammer out some feeble excuse. "You must be tired from your trip. We're just glad you could stay long enough to have some dinner with us."

Peggy nodded gratefully. Her eyes darted to Bucky, who looked torn. "You should stay and bother them a little longer, Barnes," she said. "I'm sure I can stop Steve doing something foolish and heroic for a few hours."

"I wouldn't bet on that," Bucky said. He got up and skirted around the table to kiss her lightly on the cheek. "If you need me to come home..."

Peggy managed a wan smile. "We have a telephone."

She said nothing more as Steve helped her back into her coat and they took the elevator down to the lower level, where Stark had a car and driver waiting for them.

They were halfway back to the flat when Steve said, "You okay?"

"I will be," she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder. "I just..." She breathed slowly in and out. "I don't know what I would say if he asked about his father." She looked up at him. "The last thing I remember of him is seeing him in the snow. And Barnes..." Her voice trailed off.

Steve's arm tightened around her. "Maybe we could try to remember the better times," he said. "Happier ones. Like the look on his face when you shot my shield. Or when we all went out to that bar in London and he tried to outdrink Dugan."

She tried to recall. It was the case with so many situations: given the shape of them, she could find them again, but without something to prompt her, there were too many other memories crowding in. 

"Yes," she finally murmured. "You and that young private."

She felt more than heard Steve chuckle under her ear. "Of course you'd remember that part," he teased gently. 

She lifted her head to look at him. "Did you really thing Stark and I would have done anything?" she asked. She had wondered then, she could remember that much. Such casual accusation based on Stark's meaningless flirtation.

Steve's shoulders rose. "I don't know," he admitted, and that honesty over a blatant lie was a reminder just why she was so fond of him. "I guess I was just so used to other guys getting all the attention. I didn't know what you could see in me."

She looked up at him. "You jumped on a grenade for me," she said. All the talk of his training days had brought that event into sharp focus. She remembered the day on the bridge too, but only in fragments. She remembered him, his shield, diving towards the grenade then too. "That... woke me up, you know. When you were on the bridge. When you shielded Wilson and Romanoff. I think that was when I first remembered anything."

He seemed surprised. "You never said anything about that."

She looked down at her hand, where it was resting on his thigh. "It didn't seem important."

"It helped you to remember," he said. His hand covered hers. "I think that's important."

She rested her head on his shoulder. "You helped me remember," she murmured. "I dread to think what would have happened, if they hadn't sent me after you."

"That doesn't matter now," he replied softly. "You were, and they're done with."

"Almost," she corrected.

"Almost," he agreed, resting his cheek against her hair.

They didn't speak until they were back at the flat, and he helped her out of her coat by the front door. Night had fallen, the world illuminated by homes lit against the darkness. He reached for the light switch, but she caught his arm. 

"This is enough," she said quietly, motioning to the pale light from a thousand windows. "I don't want brightness now."

He gathered her to him and kissed her gently. "I have candles, if you want," he offered. 

She leaned into his embrace. "That sounds wonderful," she murmured.

Less than ten minutes later, half a dozen plates were dotted around the living room floor, a warm glow spreading with each candle he lit. Peggy sat on the couch, watching him and the way the light played across his bare arms. He knelt back on his heels, looking over his shoulder at her. 

"Like the old days," he said with a boyish smile.

She patted the couch next to her. "Join me, Captain." She was halfway to rising as he descended and they met in the middle, his hands coming to her waist as he drew her closer. 

The warmth that had been kindled in the safe house in Poland was still there. It warmed every inch of her, the kiss of her little soldier who had grown up so well. He was important to her, and she wished she had the means to express to him how important that was.

Somehow, he ended up beneath her, her legs straddling his. He sprawled back against the arm of the couch, letting her hold herself over him, her metal hand braced behind his head. The kisses were slow and lazy and making her heart race, as his hands slid up her back and down her sides, never going higher or lower.

She pressed her other hand to his chest and drew back from the kiss to catch her breath. She could feel the beat of his heart against her palm.

Her mouth felt dry, and it felt silly to ask, when she had seen him in various stages of undress before. All the same, she asked, “Can I touch you?”

His smile was so loving that it made her shiver to her toes. “Anything you want,” he said, leaning back as she slid her hand down and beneath the bottom of his t-shirt. 

His skin was smooth beneath her fingertips, and she remembered a colder, harder room, a room filled with science and screams, where he had been a lab rat long before she had. He had been so warm then too, his chest firm against her hand.

She slid her hand up, pushing the t-shirt with it, until her palm rested over his heart again. It was pounding faster.

“I remember the first time I saw you like this,” she said in a whisper.

He covered her hand with his own. “You didn’t seem to mind,” he said, and there was a teasing glint in his eyes. “As I recall, you were very hands on with your approval.”

She felt the blush heating her cheeks, and swatted his chest as much as she could with her fingertips. “I couldn’t believe it was real,” she admitted. “That you were… like this now. It still jars, sometimes. I look at you and expect to see the man I met.”

Steve laughed, his chest rising and falling beneath her hand. “He’s still in here,” he said. “Just call this my suit of armour.”

She hesitated, then sat back enough to push the shirt the rest of the way up. He pulled it over his head and dropped it down on the floor, then settled back against the arm of the couch as she looked him all over. 

The candlelight was even kinder to him than daylight, softening places where he had become sharper and harder, a modern soldier. She reached out, tracing his jaw, down his throat, along his collarbone, memorising the new lines with her fingertips. He had committed her to paper the same way as she would now commit him to memory.

“Does it frighten you?” she asked quietly. “Being so strong?”

His lashes cast spiked shadows on his cheeks. “There are worse things than being made stronger,” he said, and she could tell from his tone he was choosing his words with care. “I try to do the right thing with my strength, but if it was a choice, I would rather be weak and a good person.”

That was why he had been chosen, so many years before.

Erskine saw it. She saw it. Even Phillips saw it.

“But we don’t get that choice anymore,” she murmured. “You. Barnes. Me. We’re all stronger than we should be. Changed by design. We’re all weapons.”

He sat up, catching her face between his hands, so gentle despite his size. Her hands moved to his waist, holding him there, maybe holding him back, maybe drawing him closer. 

“We’re not weapons, Peggy,” he whispered, kissing her so softly. “We are what we choose to be. Maybe the choice wasn’t ours all the time, but it is now.” He pressed his brow to hers and she could feel his hands trembling. “You were made for more than this.”

Her eyes stung with tears. She remembered those words. She remembered the way he looked at her that day. She could feel the tears on her cheeks, trickling between his fingers, and she looked up at him, his eyes as bright as hers in the candlelight, and knew he meant it. 

Every word.


	41. Unified

The candles had long since burned low, flickering wicks sputtering in puddles of wax.

Steve had caught her tears as she wept, and gathered her in his arms, cradling her against his chest. He spoke of how he had felt when they first used him. Not the same way, he admitted, not as cruelly, but still using him. He reminded her that she was the one to give him the means to step away from that. He promised he would be the one to do the same for her. 

For the first time, she could really believe it.

It was because he was there, each step of the mission.

Before, when she was breaking free of the Winter Soldier, she needed no companionship or comfort. She would hide away alone, sleep in the dirt and the cold and think nothing of it. With each day that she became more Peggy and less the Winter Soldier, it had become harder. 

She had always been a soldier. A soldier was part of a unit.

It wasn't the same when she did a mission with Natasha.

Natasha was too much like her.

They were both constructed weapons learning to be human again.

Natasha had never been a soldier, not in the same way as Peggy had.

Steve had.

Steve understood.

Steve and Bucky both remembered what it was to return from a mission and to be part of that close-knit unit, brothers-at-arms. 

Natasha was quiet after missions, saying little to Peggy. 

Steve and Bucky were different. Steve and Bucky spoke to her. It was the camaraderie, Peggy remembered, after a mission and a debrief. The echoes of a forgotten age. The winding down. The calm. And quite often, the men getting rather merry at the nearest pub, and singing the night away.

That was why she felt more like soldier this time. Less like a weapon destined for its shelf. More like a human being.

It was a very human thing to settle into his embrace, her body half-draped on his. His skin was smooth beneath her fingers, and his hands splayed on her back, as broad and warm as he was. She kissed him again and again, though her throat was raw and her mouth was dry.

Even when the candles went out, one by one, they stayed there. 

She pillowed her head on his shoulder, his arms like a mantle around her, and they breathed together. It was comfort and it was warmth and it was the safest she had felt in far too long. When he curled his fingers into her short hair and murmured that she should sleep, she found that she wanted to.

It wasn't nightmares that roused her, nor daylight, nor the sound of traffic in the city beyond the four walls.

It was the softness of a blanket being drawn over her back.

Peggy's eyes flicked open, and she saw the hand holding the blanket, saw it freeze. Scarred hand. Bucky.

She lifted her head slightly, glancing up to him. He smoothed the blanket over her shoulder, then touched his finger to his lips, nodding to the man beneath her. Steve was fast asleep. One arm had slipped off her back in the night and fallen to trail off the couch. He looked peaceful and his lips were turned up in a small smile.

Peggy looked down at him.

The tight line of worry that had furrowed his brow for so long was gone. Perhaps it was just because he was asleep. Perhaps it was because they had both found a little peace together. She didn't know, but he looked as young as he had when first they met.

She smiled herself, laying her head back down on his shoulder. She closed her eyes again, her fingers spreading lightly on his chest.

Bucky ruffled her hair, then padded away. 

The spread of the sun had moved across the floor the next time she opened her eyes.

Steve's fingers were lightly tracing up and down the back of her neck, teasing through her hair. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath hers, his breaths slow and even. She curled her fingers against his ribs, her nails drawing up the bare skin.

He shivered pleasantly.

"Morning," he murmured, his voice low and drowsy.

She lifted her head, folding her arms on his chest and propping her chin on them. His eyes were half-open, sleepy. "Sleep well?" she murmured.

The surprise registered on his face as he blinked at her, his eyes focussing on her. "Yes," he said. "You?"

She nodded, tilting her head into his touch as he caressed her cheek. "Very well," she said, then added quietly, "No nightmares."

His face lit up. "That's great," he said with such happiness that she had to smile. 

"That's the first time," she confided. 

If anything, that made him smile all the wider. "Let's hope this is the start of a new trend," he said, his fingertips curling around the shell of her ear, smoothing back errant curls. 

She lowered her eyelids, her fingertips tracing a circle on his chest. "All of it?" she murmured, and she could feel the colour warming her cheeks.

His chuckle vibrated through his chest. "If you like," he said warmly. "I'm not about to complain."

She leaned forward over him and kissed him carefully, her arms unfolding to brace her palms against his shoulders. "Tonight, then?" she whispered against his lips. "A bed this time? Perhaps candles again?"

His fingers curved around the back of her head, holding her there gently. "Whatever you want, Peggy," he murmured.

Her lips skittered down his cheek, and she buried her face in his neck, just for a moment. It felt like such a massive step, even though it was little more than they had already done. He murmured soothingly to her, stroking his hand down the back of her neck and over her shoulders.

It hesitated there.

"Peggy," he murmured. "Where'd'the blanket come from?"

She smothered her smile against his throat. "Bucky," she said, pushing herself back up over him, her palms pressing back to his shoulders.

He blinked at her. "I slept through Buck coming in?"

"I think you needed it," she said. 

She braced her weight on her hands and pushed herself upright, kneeling over him, her knees on either side of his hips. His hands slid down her body, drawn by gravity, and settled at her hips. 

His eyes flicked over her there, and she could see the heat in the way he looked at her. It wasn't so frightening anymore, not when she could see the love behind the desire. 

Still, her cheeks flushed and she scrambled off him. 

"Tea," she said. "Would you like some tea?"

He propped himself up on his elbows with a grin. She couldn't remember seeing him so loose-limbed and relaxed, not before the procedure, and certainly not since. "How about we just go with breakfast?" he said. "There can be tea if you want."

She knew she was blushing like a school girl, which was absurd. "Yes," she said quickly. "I think that might be wise."

He unfolded up from the couch and caught her briefly around the waist to claim a kiss, before heading towards the kitchen. She watched him walk away, letting herself just take a breath to appreciate the way the muscles moved beneath his flesh.

He paused at the door, glancing back, and she knew he saw her look of frank appraisal. He flexed his shoulders, earning a smile.

"Enjoying the view?" he said, eyes dancing.

"Very much," she agreed, then waved him on with her fingers. "Continue. I wasn't finished."

She heard him laugh as he walked through the doorway, and she darted her tongue along her lower lip. She had seen him in various stages of undress, it was true, but she hadn't considered much beyond kissing him, not until now.

Now, with the scent of him on her clothing, and her body still warm from his, it made her heart skip a beat.

She hesitated there, pushing her fingers through her tousled hair.

It was more exhilarating than terrifying now, which was a huge step. There was still fear. Of course there was. Such things were never fully vanquished. But she didn't recoil from his touch and she didn't shy from his embrace. 

She slept, peacefully, in his arms. She woke, peacefully, at his touch. 

It was not perfect, but it was better. It was so much better.


	42. Utterance

It was too much to hope for more than one night of unbroken sleep.

A peaceful day, spent in the company of both Barnes and Steve, was too much of a good thing. They watched silly films and ate copious amounts of food and there was even laughter. It felt like a false sense of security. Perhaps that was why her mind rebelled against her, when night fell. She had spent years conditioned to wait for threats. Being at peace meant she was no longer as guarded as she was trained to be. 

The nightmares returned, even though she was sleeping safely in Steve’s embrace. She woke silently. She always did, and had done for over fifty years. Any screams or tears had to be contained in case of a nearby threat. Screaming helped no one. Screaming only resulted in more pain.

The tension in her body was still enough to wake him.

“You okay?” he whispered in the darkness.

“Light,” she said hoarsely. “Please.”

He could have switched the lamp on, but instead, he rolled to his side and she heard the scratch of a match. The soft warmth of candlelight illuminated the room, and he rolled back over onto his back, searching her face.

She was shaking and it was ridiculous.

It was only a nightmare, she knew, but it carried an echo of truth, of places she had been and people she had killed. Only this time, she dreamed of another bed in a hotel she remembered, but Steve was the one lying in it, his chest ruptured and her hand covered in his blood. 

Blankly, she reached out and touched his chest with her fingertips, seeking his heartbeat.

There was no blood. 

He was whole and he was there and he was safe.

He didn’t need to say a word. He just sat up and pulled her over into his arms. She couldn’t even find the strength to hold him, her arms crushed between their chests, her face pressing against his neck. 

“I hate this,” he confessed in a whisper. “I hate that I can’t help.”

“You are,” she whispered back, uncurling her fists and pressing her palms flat on his chest, the warmth of his skin warming her in turn. She slid her right hand up, over his shoulder, letting her fingers curl around the back of his neck. “I dreamed I killed you.”

His chest rose and fell against hers, as he breathed out. “I don’t know if I should be complimented or insulted,” he said. 

She lifted her head to look at him. “Please don’t joke,” she asked quietly. “It’s not… it could have been.” She touched his throat lightly with her left hand, then slid her fingers up to the faint traces of the scars that she had left on his face when they fought. “I could have killed you that day, you know.”

“I know,” he murmured, “but I could have killed you too.” He lifted his hand to cup her cheek, stroking his thumb along it. “You’re not the only one who has nightmares about it, Peggy. I let you fall. I didn’t come back for you.” One side of his mouth turned up in a brief, sad smile. “I might look like I’m holding it together, but it’s not easy.”

She searched his face, then wrapped her arms around his shoulders, hugging him as tightly as she could.

“We’re a walking disaster area,” she whispered, as he tightened his arms around her. 

He laughed, a brief huff of warm air on her shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “But we’re both alive and we’re both still standing.” He pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “You want to try and get some more sleep?”

She nodded against his neck. “You too,” she said, gradually drawing back. “We both need to rest.” He started to lean towards the candle, but she touched his shoulder. “Leave it on? I like the light.”

He smiled. “Of course,” he said, sprawling back down onto his back. She curled down beside him, insinuating one of her legs between his, her head on his shoulder, and her right hand over his chest, the safer hand. His arm settled around her at once, and she fixed her eyes on the flame, evening out her breathing little by little.

In the end, she slept. 

It wasn’t as restful as the previous night, but when she woke again, it wasn’t with alarm or fright. It was simply waking, opening her eyes in the absence of sleep, and feeling the warm closeness of a man who was not quite her lover.

Peggy lifted her head to look at him, unsurprised to find that he was already awake.

“How long?” she murmured sleepily.

“Half an hour,” he murmured, stroking his fingers along the back of her neck. 

She prodded his chest. “You could have woken me.”

“Could have,” he agreed with a drowsy smile, “but I like watching you sleep.”

She gazed at him for a long while, then pushed herself up over him and leaned down to kiss him. He smiled against her lips, his fingertips tracing circles on the nape of her neck, and she drew back only when her breath was coming quickly. 

“Sleep better?” he said, the fond warmth in his eyes making her heartbeat skip.

“Well,” she said, her fingers stroking down his throat, “we’re both alive.”

He raised his eyebrows in evident amusement. “I thought we weren’t meant to joke about that,” he said.

“Turn about is fair play,” she replied, drawing her hand downwards over his chest. There was nothing intimate in the gesture, simply touching him, until he gave an undignified yelp as her fingers traced over his hip.

She looked down at her hand and the bare flesh above his boxers. There was no mark or bruise to be causing any pain, and she looked back at him, intrigued and suspicious. They had touched one another so little and knew so little of one another’s bodies, and this… this was a new and wholly unexpected development. 

Peggy lifted her hand with deliberation, watching his face, and the flicker of trepidation in his eyes. When she touched him there again, she could see him tense, but his whole body shivered and she almost laughed out loud in amusement.

After all the bloody violence and the chaos and the nightmares, it was a relief to have the simple pleasure of finding out that Captain America was ticklish. She met his eyes, then smiled in warning, before her fingers danced over his skin in earnest.

He tried his utmost to feign indifference, but soon enough, he was snorting with stifled laughter and trying to squirm away from her hands. The bed was large, but he was a large man and backing himself up against the headboard only meant he was captive to her touch.

When he broke and started laughing, she couldn’t help joining in, even when he tumbled her onto her back in the bedding. They wrestled one another, rolling across the bed and back, limbs in all directions, as she tried to maintain her assault.

In the end, he came out on top, pinning her on her back. 

Once, it would have terrified her, and she would have kicked and thrashed until he released her, but his palms were against hers, pressing them into the pillows, her fingers tangled with his, and they were both laughing and breathless, and his whole body was covering hers. The weight of it should have frightened her, but it didn’t and her knees pressed on either side of his hips, holding him there.

He held himself up enough to look down at her, his face flushed, and his eyes bright. 

Peggy’s mouth felt suddenly dry, her gaze flicking to his lips, then back to his eyes. “So, Captain,” she whispered. “It seems you have me.”

His tongue darted along his lower lip. “Likewise.”

When he leaned down and kissed her, warm shivers rushed through her, her body rolling up against his. He broke the kiss with an unsteady groan as his hips pressed to hers.

“Peggy…”

Her hands tightened on his in sudden panic, her heart racing. She wanted to say they could do whatever they pleased. She wanted to feel his skin on hers. She wanted to hold him, but even now, even with the laughter and the security and the warmth, the fear still crept up on her.

“Not yet,” she whispered apologetically against his lips. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded, kissing her again, lightly. “I know,” he murmured. Another kiss was pressed to her cheek, then another closer to her ear, and he whispered, “But I swear to god if you tell Bucky I’m still ticklish, I’ll find a way to bring you down.”

She pulled one of her hands free and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “You can try, Captain,” she whispered back, her voice only a little unsteady.

He rolled them both onto their sides, catching her in his arms, and holding her there. He didn’t say a word, just stroking her back until she was breathing evenly again, and her heart wound down from a frantic buzz to a steady beat.

She pressed her brow to his collarbone, her eyes closed. “I’m sorry,” she said again, quietly.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, his hand moving to cup the back of her head. “You don’t need to apologise. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

She drew away, sitting up at the edge of the bed, her back to him. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “It just feels so stupid,” she confessed unhappily. “You’re the only man who has ever made me feel as safe as I do.” She lowered her hands, looking down at them. “I shouldn’t be afraid of you.”

The bed shifted under his weight as he moved closer, and he laid his hands on her shoulders.

“I know it’s not personal,” he said gently, “You do too.” She leaned back into him as he kissed her brow. “We’ve got time, Peggy. As long as you need.”

She reached up, catching his hands, and drew his arms around her. “Steve,” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“You know that I love you, don’t you?”

His breath escaped in a warm gust against her cheek. “You do?”

She blinked hard, her eyes treacherously wet. It felt like a crime that she hadn’t told him before. “Yes,” she whispered. “Quite a lot, actually.” She tightened her hands on his arms, his safe, warm, loving arms. “I thought you ought to know.”

His breathing was unsteady and his embrace tightened. “I love you too, Peggy,” he whispered. “A hell of a lot.”

She was crying again, but happily so, and patted his arm with trembling fingers. “Good,” she said, so softly she could barely hear it. “That’s good.”

He pressed his brow to her hair. “Yeah,” he replied, just as softly.


	43. Uneasy

“You’re doing it again.”

Peggy looked up from her cup of hot chocolate. She was stirring it with the long wooden stick the barista had provided for her, and had yet to take a drink from the cup. “Hmm?”

Barnes was sitting on the stool opposite her, a half-smile playing about his lips. “The staring into nothing and smiling like you just got laid thing,” he said, his smile widening to a dirty grin when she blushed. “Is that how is it, Miss Carter?”

“That’s none of your business, Barnes,” she said, flicking the end of the stick at him. Flecks of foam and chocolate spattered his face. 

He grumbled good-naturedly, wiping his face with a napkin. “I just mean you’re looking happier, Pegs,” he said, the grin giving way to his more familiar, relaxed smile. “So’s Steve, from what I saw of him before he bolted this morning.”

Peggy set the stick down on one of the spare napkins. They were at a coffee house not far from the flat for precisely that reason. Steve had been called to Stark Tower, and all he could say before he kissed her goodbye was that it was Avengers business. She hadn’t felt like spending the day cooped up indoors, ergo coffee shop.

“Do you think that means there’s a threat?” she asked, taking her time to unwrap the small, round biscuit Barnes had bought for her. “From what I recall of the dossiers I saw, the Avengers are only called on in times of dangers.”

Barnes shrugged. “Steve’ll tell us as soon as he gets back,” he said, the snickered. “God help anyone who tried to make him comply with a confidentiality clause.”

Peggy broke the biscuit into four even parts. “He was never a man made for keeping secrets,” she observed with a quiet smile. “Especially not from the people he cares about.” She looked up from the biscuit to find Bucky smiling at her. “What?”

“So he finally spilled,” he said. 

“Spilled?”

“Told you.” Bucky replied, reaching over and stealing a piece of her biscuit. She swatted his hand, but he just grinned at her. “You know. About the fact he would walk over fire for you and through ice and whatever the hell the other metaphors are that mean you could put a leash on him and he would like it.”

If she had been blushing before, Peggy’s cheeks felt like they were on fire now. “Bucky!” she exclaimed, balling up the napkin and hurling it at his head.

He batted it aside, laughing. “Okay, okay! A ring! A nice, sweet, innocent little band of gold.”

Under the table, she kicked him hard in the shin. “You’re trying to make me flustered,” she accused, aware that her face was still red.

“Trying?” he said, eyes dancing. “I think I succeeded.” He reached over the table and covered her right hand with his left, squeezing her fingers. His expression turned serious. “You know he’s crazy about you. I bet if he thought you’d accept, he’d be on one knee in no time.”

If he thought you’d accept.

Once more, Steve was far more perceptive than people gave him credit for.

It wasn’t that marriage was a chain or a shackle, but for so many years, her life had been controlled by others. 

For the first time since her teenage years, she had the freedom to do exactly as she chose to do. She was not bound to anyone, and did not have to obey or submit or demean herself. Perhaps they were both old-fashioned enough to think that marriage would change that. 

It was far from true, in any case.

Steve would never consider her his inferior. 

He would, as he always had, view her as his equal.

The world, on the other hand, would only see Mrs Captain America, and he would never force that identity on her. He wanted her to have the freedom to be herself first and foremost, not just the woman he had loved, lost, and found again.

If he asked, if she accepted, the world would look at her as they both knew it would.

Neither of them wanted that.

“If he asked,” she finally said, “he knows what the answer would be.”

Bucky’s smile was understanding. “And that’s why he doesn’t ask,” he said. “You don’t want to say no, and he knows you’re not ready to say yes.” He gave her hand a firm squeeze. “You could just marry me, y’know. Confuse everyone.”

She looked at him in amusement. “Are you proposing to me, Sergeant Barnes?”

He grinned. “I could,” he said, “just to watch Tony have a conniption.”

She withdrew her hand from his and picked up her mug between her hands. “Well, as romantic and invitation as that is,” she said, “I’m afraid I would have to demur.” She took a sip of the hot chocolate, letting it warm her. “After all, one has to have standards.”

“Ouch!”

She looked at him over the rim of her mug, eyes dancing. “Problem, sergeant?”

He made a face at her. “I’m looking right at it,” he said.

“Charmed, I’m sure.” 

He stole another piece of her biscuit, dunking it in his coffee. “Pepper says she and Tony’d like you to come around for dinner again some time,” he said. “If you’re up to it.”

Peggy set her mug down. “Tony would, would he?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Carter, if I can see you’re not the same person, Tone can as well,” he said. “He might be a smart mouth punk, but he’s a good kid and I think he actually likes you. He’s behaving well and everything.”

“Good behaviour doesn’t mean someone likes you,” she observed. “It merely means they don’t want to offend you for fear of the consequences.”

“Trust me,” Bucky said, “he likes you. If you think Tony behaves around people he’s afraid of, you have another thing coming. He’s got a bad habit of pissing off the people who already want to tear him a new one.”

She raised her eyebrows. “So I’m to believe that if he likes me, he acts politely?”

Barnes grinned. “If he smart mouths you. If he didn’t like you, he’d threaten you.”

Peggy thought back to her first encounter with the younger Stark, and his threat to terminate her if she became dangerous. He hadn’t threatened her since then, and now, he offered her nicknames and sarcasm. 

She finished the last of her hot chocolate, mulling on the possibilities.

“Perhaps they could come to our flat,” she said. It was the one place in the city that she knew she felt safe. Stark’s tower was large and imposing and impersonal, with cameras and security feeds and too much of everything. Their flat, on the other hand, was becoming home. “We could even try to cook something.”

Bucky’s face lit up. “I like this plan,” he said, snatching up his coat as she got to her feet. “I bet Steve would want to help too. He’s got it into his head that he’s great at mashed potatoes.”

“Isn’t he?”

Bucky winced, tilting his hand from side to side. “They’re still recognisable as potatoes,” he said, “but I’ve had better.”

Peggy wrapped her scarf around her neck, then pulled her coat neatly around her, fastening the buttons. “We will have to coordinate to keep the potatoes out of his hands, then,” she said. She glanced out of the window. A bleak, wet sleet was falling, and it was far darker than noon has any right to be. “Shall we go home?”

Bucky bowed in an exaggerated way and offered his arm. “If my lady would accompany me?”

She smiled, slipping her arm through his. He shook out his umbrella as they reached the door, and she pushed it wide.

“We could probably skate home on this,” he grumbled, as they stepped out onto the ice- and rain-slick street.

“Oh, do stop fussing,” she said with a feigned sigh. “One would imagine you hadn’t wandered about the Alps in sub-zero temperatures.”

He snorted in amusement. “In my day,” he said, putting on a cracked old man voice, “we had to walk twenty miles across enemy lines…”

Peggy almost laughed, but something was bothering her. Her eyes scanned the buildings around them, the people on the street, the traffic. Her skin felt like it was prickling, and she didn’t realise she had stopped walking until Bucky’s arm tugged against hers. 

“Pegs?”

She didn’t reply at once, staring up at a window in a hotel across the street. There was no one there, but the curtain moved slightly. 

She kept her eyes trained on it. “We need to get back to the flat,” she said. “Now.”

He didn’t question it. He didn’t even wonder at the fact she willingly stepped out into the street and hailed a taxi, when they were less than a block away. He didn’t say anything until he unlocked the door, let them in, and closed the door behind them.

“Okay,” he said, setting the umbrella aside. “You want to tell me what that was about?”

Her hands were tensed into fists by her side. “He was watching us,” she said tersely.

“What? Who?”

She turned around to face him. “Who do you think?” she said, more sharply than she intended to. “The last operative.”


	44. Unforeseen

From the moment Bucky had closed the door, Peggy had been pacing in circles, gathering her thoughts. She didn’t stop, her eyes fixed on the floor as she walked the perimeter of the room, her hands clenching and unclenching by her sides.

Broad hands came to rest on her shoulders. Her mind was so focussed on the enemy that she struck out. Her hands, spread wide, struck her assailant in the middle of his chest, the force tossing him across the room like a rag doll. He hit the bookshelves, crashing to the floor as she stepped into a defensive stance.

Steve winced, looking up at her from the floor. “Hey.”

Peggy stared at him blankly, her hands still shielding her centre. “Steve?”

Bucky stepped alongside him and help him up. “You okay?”

Steve nodded. He crossed the floor without hesitation and caught Peggy’s hands, drawing them down from their defensive position. “You okay, Peggy?”

Her hands were shaking in his, and she looked at them, as if they were betraying her. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice unsteady. He tugged on her fingers, and she took the unspoken invitation, stepping into his arms and holding him tightly. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. “Bruises. Gone in no time.”

“So that’s why Captain Grandpa wanted to bring her back to the real world?” 

She almost jerked out of Steve’s arms at Stark’s voice. “Stark?”

“Easy, Peggy, easy,” Steve murmured, stroking her back soothingly. “Just breathe for a second, okay?” His cheek was resting against her hair, and he was breathing in and out, slow and steady, until she was breathing with the same rhythm. “Calm is better.”

“This is my place, Steve,” she whispered, her fingers clenching against his back. “I-I felt safe here. I was safe here. With you. With Barnes. And now…” She shuddered, burying her face in his chest.

“I know,” he said softly.

Her fingers were flexing slowly against his back. “I want to finish it.”

His hand cupped the back of her head and he pressed his lips to her crown. He gave her no words of reassurance that everything would be fine, because she knew he couldn’t lie like that. Instead, he just held her and said quietly, “So we finish it.”

She took a gulping breath and drew back to look beyond him. Bucky was standing by the doorway, arms tightly folded over his chest. He didn’t look happy. Natasha was standing just inside the door, and Stark was still in the hall, rocking on the balls of his feet.

“I thought you had Avengers business?” she said, looking up at Steve.

He kneaded the back of her neck with his fingertips. “That can wait,” he said. “This can’t. If they’re watching you, they’re coming for you.”

Peggy didn’t need to be told that. 

She put one hand to his chest and closed her eyes tightly. There was no need for her thoughts to running in panicked circles. It was a mission. Nothing more. It should not have mattered that this time, they were on her soil, and this time, they were targeting her, rather than the other way around.

It should not have mattered, but it did.

They were targeting her, and she knew why.

“This isn’t a kill mission ,” she confessed in a whisper. “Karpov tried to control me. Belova was going to take me back.” Her voice was shaking and god, she was terrified. “If I’m taken, if you have a shot, promise me you’ll take it.” She opened her eyes, looking up at him. Her cheeks felt wet. “I can’t go back to that. I _can’t_.”

Steve’s hand covered hers on his chest, as it had so many weeks ago at the hospital.

“I won’t let that happen,” he said fiercely. “You’re with us now. We won’t let them take you back.”

She couldn’t speak, her throat tight with emotion. She could only nod, grateful. Support. She had support now. A team. Allies. Not alone. Not isolated. Not a single weapon.

Natasha spoke quietly. “Tell us what you need us to do.”

Peggy pressed her fingertips against Steve’s chest, grounding herself. 

She breathed slowly, in, then out, in then out. New target assigned. Standard mission protocol. Acquire targets and logistics. Collate relevant data to locate, disable, and neutralise threats.

“I need to know where to find them,” she said. “I need to know everything. I need to know if he’s working alone or if they have sent a team. I need to know the scale of the operation.” She looked at Stark. “You have your computers. Barnes can show you where I saw them. The hotel. Find the names they’re using. Find CCTV footage. Find their faces. Find anything you can.”

Stark looked surprised. “Is she always like this?” he said out of the corner of his mouth to Romanoff.

“On a mission?” Natasha replied. “This is her being nice.” She jerked her head. “You might want to get on that, Stark.”

Stark nodded, touching a fingertip to his ear. “You get all that, JARVIS?” He looked at Bucky. “You’re coming with me, Uncle Buck. We have intelligence to collect.”

“Can’t help thinking we’re sending the wrong people on that mission,” Steve said, loudly enough for both men to hear him as they headed into the hall. 

Bucky’s hand reappeared around the doorframe, one finger poking upwards, and for half a moment, Peggy could almost smile. It lasted until the front door closed, then she forced herself to step back from Steve’s proximity.

Comfort was appreciated, but it was also a distraction when she needed to be alert.

“Did you have any experience of Operative Three?” she asked Natasha.

Natasha shook her head. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I think I crossed paths with him a couple of times, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“Do you have a face for him?” Steve asked.

Peggy went over to her couch, sitting down on the edge. She pressed her fingertips to her forehead, trying to remember. 

It was hard enough to organise the memories of events and people she wanted to recall, but to trace the details of the face of another person she had trained and broken and put together as neatly as a revolver was like beating at a door that wouldn’t open. 

She knew she had to remember, but a greater part of her wanted to recoil from the knowledge.

Belova had been trial enough.

“I did,” she said, soft and harsh. Her nails were biting into her brow. “I… can’t reach it.”

Abruptly, Steve was in front of her, kneeling down, and drawing her hands from her face.

“Don’t push for it,” he said, his hands gentle around her wrists. He knelt up to rest his brow against hers, and brought her hands back to his chest, holding both of them there. “Focus on what’s coming. Not what was. We’ll find them.”

“We don’t know what he looks like,” she protested. “Male, dark-haired. In this city, how does that help anyone?”

“I don’t care about him now,” Steve said, his voice just as calm and low. “I care about you. I know how badly Belova upset you. You don’t need that again. You don’t need to look back at that, not when it hurts you.”

She shook her head helplessly. “I need to know who I’m fighting, Steve.”

He lifted his hands to cup her face. “Then think of this as a new enemy,” he said, “and we can work from there. Someone sent by the people you do know. Someone who we know is as well-trained as you and Natasha were. We don’t need a face to fight someone like that.”

She closed her eyes, pressing her brow to his. “I want to see his face,” she whispered, “before we’re done. I need to see his face.”

“Would it help?” Natasha asked quietly. “Another face to remind you of those days?”

Peggy took a shaking breath. “I can’t forget those days, even if I wanted to,” she said in a low voice. “They’re always there in some form or another. You know that. If I see him, I’ll know another threat is gone.”

Natasha didn’t argue.

“We’ll use this place as our base,” Steve said firmly, “and wait to see what the guys find.”

Peggy nodded, forcing herself to step back from him.

The first priority was making sure their surroundings were secure. Steve made sure of it, and Peggy ensured that she double- and triple-checked everything for her own reassurance. 

It felt like cowardice to close herself away in the flat while Stark and his technology gathered intelligence, but she had no desire to face her enemy without knowing all the variables.

Stark was efficient in his task.

Within two hours, the first data started arriving to Steve's e-mail. He opened the computer for her, setting it on the table in the livingroom, and Peggy sat down at it at once. Much of it was not relevant, but she skimmed through days of footage from security feeds within the hotel lobbies and CCTV footage from the streets outside, searching for a familiar face.

She didn't know how long she was sitting there, one leg folded beneath her, and nor did she care.

The mission was the priority.

Seventy years had scored that deeply into her psyche.

Now, it could be useful.

She had always been steadfast and patient, but only human. Her handlers had made her something else. They had provided her with endurance that she should not have had, whether to run, to attack, or to focus on a task until her eyes were dry and aching.

Food was placed within her reach, and she must have eaten, but she could not be sure of the flavour or the substance of it. It was only when warm hands came to rest on her shoulders that she tore her eyes from the screen.

It was dark outside, and the lights were on. Peggy blinked hard, lifting her right hand to rub at her eyes. Her arm spasmed, the muscles protesting so many unmoving hours.

"Anything familiar?" Steve asked quietly, his hands kneading her shoulders gently.

She closed her eyes. "No," she said, her voice startling her with how hoarse and dry it was. "He must have support too."

"You're a serious threat." Natasha's voice spoke from nearby. Peggy didn't even try to turn her head, her neck aching. "You've taken out their base, raided one of their major facilities, as well as two of their operatives, mostly single-handed as far as they know. They must be worried if they've put together a team."

The idea filled her with trepidation.

It was entirely possible that there were other operatives that she knew nothing about, people she had not trained or had any hand in. If the last of her trainees was collaborating with others of their ilk, if they were numerous, they stood a far greater chance than if they were alone.

Steve's hands continued to knead at her neck and shoulders, trying to ease tension that went right down to her bones.

"You can't do more tonight," he said quietly. "You need to rest, if you can."

If seemed such a challenging word, but he was right, of course.

Even if the mission had to be a priority, she had to consider her physical state. The Winter Soldier never needed to. Repairs were made. Supplements and energy substitutes were provided. Sleep was not considered essential.

She nodded, rolling her shoulders beneath his hands. "A bath," she said. "I need a bath. Hot."

He didn't even hesitate or question it. He just dropped a kiss on top of her head, and walked out of the room to draw one for her.

With effort, Peggy unfolded her legs from beneath her, and turned on the seat. Pins and needles ran the length of her legs. She shifted both legs slowly, easing the tension, raising her head to look over at Romanoff. 

Natasha was barefoot and sitting on the couch, a tablet in her lap. She looked at Peggy with visible concern. "I'm sorry I can't remember him," she said quietly. "I know it would have helped."

"He was before your time," Peggy demurred, slowly curling and uncurling her hands. "You weren't to know."

Natasha set the tablet aside. "At least we still have an advantage," she said. Peggy raised her eyebrows in enquiry. "He may know that you and I have been working together, but no one knows your current affiliations."

Peggy laughed quietly, wearily. "I'm currently living with Captain America," she murmured, "I suspect it may have been noticed."

Natasha shrugged. "That means nothing," she said. "You could be his prisoner by proxy. You could be manipulating him. You could be using him, as far as anyone outside of this apartment knows. No one knows what your relationship is to him." She set her feet down on the floor, leaning forward. "You can use that."

Peggy lifted her hand to rub at her eyes. "No," she said.

"It's an adv..."

"I said," Peggy said, her voice brittle, "no. They've sullied every other part of my life. They do not get to touch that." Her words shrank to a thin, unsteady whisper. "I won't let them. It's the one good, pure thing I have left."

Natasha was quiet for a moment. "Oh.”

Peggy looked down at her hands, clenched in tight knots in her lap. "Yes."

Natasha exhaled quietly. "Okay. So we find another way."

"Yes," Peggy repeated, just as quietly.

They both turned their heads when Steve re-entered the room a moment later. 

"Bath's ready," he said. "Nat, call Bucky. Get him home. I think we need to all be here tonight."

She wished she had the wit to thank him for that, but she was tired. 

She let him help her to her feet and back through to the bathroom. As he undressed her, he let his hands brush her skin, warm where she felt cold, soft where she felt hard, a reminder that she was more than they had made her.

The tears were gathering in her eyes, and they were a stupid damnable weakness, but she couldn't stop them from spilling down her cheeks.

Only two days before, she had felt happy and safe and loved.

Only two days before, the threat was so distant that she could ignore it for a time, but now, it was choking her.

She stepped as close to Steve as she could, her hands at his waist, and pressed bodily to him. She could feel his palms ghost over her shoulders, down her back, holding her, but doing it so gently that she knew she could break free in a heartbeat.

"I'd offer to share the tub with you," he murmured, looking down at her, "but it was a tight enough fit for Buck."

“We wouldn’t want to be trapped like sardines,” she agreed, as much as she wished he would join her. “But you’ll stay?”

He cupped her cheeks with his hands and kissed her softly on the forehead. “As long as you’ll have me,” he promised.


	45. Undone

Bucky was back by the time they came out of the bathroom. 

Peggy drew away from Steve long enough to pull Bucky into a tight, almost violent embrace. He squeezed the back of her neck with one hand, then reached out with his other hand and knocked Steve on the arm.

"I brought food," he said. "Tony said we shouldn't risk takeout, so me and Pepper threw some stuff together at the tower."

It was a good plan. Sensible. Safe.

Natasha was setting out plates in the living room when they re-entered. Without saying a word, she indicated that she was staying too. No one asked. There was simply no question of her not being there. She, of all people, knew what they would be facing, and her presence was both a comfort and a support.

A dish of steaming pasta was placed in front of Peggy, and she picked up her fork. 

Despite the warmth of the bath and the food and all the things that felt normal and every day and human, she didn't feel right. There was something mechanical in the way she was moving, and she tried to fight it. 

The mission mentality was overriding everything else.

The food went from plate to mouth without her tasting any flavour or texture. Her eyes were unfocussed. Her mind was going over the defences again and again. Every time she caught herself, she flinched. Steve noticed and drew her closer.

"We should plan a vacation," he said, his arm light around her waist. His hand slipped under the end of her shirt to rest against her side, and that little piece of flesh to flesh contact sent a warm shiver through her. 

"I think somewhere sunny," Bucky declared, leaning over the table to grab the bottle of soda. "With a beach."

"I wasn't asking you," Steve said with a snort. "Peggy, how about it? You want to go somewhere?" She was staring at her plate, chewing automatically on a mouthful of some kind of pasta. He had to gently tweak her side to draw her attention, and she looked up, blinking. "Bucky's trying to get us to go to the Bahamas or somewhere on vacation. I think you get first dibs."

Peggy set down her fork carefully on the edge of the plate. "A vacation?"

"Once everything is done with," Bucky said. "Captain Bossy there says I don't get first choice."

"I think the person who hasn't had a vacation deserves to choose," Steve said. "How about it, Peggy? Is there somewhere you'd like to go?"

It jarred with mission protocol, to think of events beyond the mission. The mission always had to be the priority. It always had been for the Winter Soldier, but she was not going to be the Winter Soldier anymore. Her head ached and Peggy buried her head in her hands, her elbows on the edge of the table.

Bucky swore aloud, and Steve's arm tensed at her waist.

"Too much?" Natasha asked quietly.

Peggy was breathing unsteadily, her fingertips pressing to her temples, her eyes pressed tightly closed. Beyond the mission, they had time. They had places they could go. They could do as they pleased, once the mission was done, and yes, they should decide now. Preparation. Perhaps it was ambitious. Perhaps it was nothing more than a fantasy.

A holiday.

She had the chance to choose somewhere for a holiday. Somewhere that was pleasant and restful and welcoming. Somewhere that she always remembered as safe and happy. A name came to mind, though she could not say where from. 

"Guernsey."

There was a puzzled, concerned silence.

"Uh, what?" Bucky inquired carefully.

She lowered her hands, and forced her fingers to pick up the cutlery once more. Her hands were shaking. "Guernsey," she repeated quietly. "We'll go to Guernsey." She opened her eyes to look up at them. "I think I used to go there when I was a child. It was... pleasant." 

"I'll make some calls," Natasha said.

Peggy looked up at her sharply. "Once the mission is done," she said. "The mission must be our first priority."

Romanoff met her gaze and nodded. "Understood." 

She spoke in Russian, and Peggy had to look away.

"Screw the mission," Bucky said, propping both his arms on the table. "Right now I want to know where the hell is Guernsey?"

She let both of the men draw her into conversation about the place that she had visited close to a century before, and to her surprise, it was like a key had been fitted into a dusty locked box. Memories surfaced that she thought long lost. 

She remembered a small spade with a wooden shaft and a tin blade painted red, a metal pail, and the sandcastles she built with them. She remembered scrambling on rocks, hunting crabs with a boy. No, not a boy. Her brother, Thomas. She remembered the special treat of ice cream, thick and yellow and creamy, as they sat with their toes burrowed in soft, pale sand. She remembered her parents, her grave-faced father, and laughing mother. She remembered their pride as she was elevated in the ranks. She remembered them waving her off, when she signed on with the SSR.

The mission was not important, if only for a little while. In its place, there were people she knew and loved, and had forgotten: her family. 

She rose from the table abruptly, the inundation of memories too much, and went to the window, bracing her palms on the ledge.

"Peggy?" Steve said, rising.

Her voice sounded like a stranger's. "Perhaps we might visit London?" She pressed her palms against the sill, hard enough to bruise. "I... my family lived there."

"Oh, Peggy." Steve sounded stricken. "We didn't think to find out..."

She shook her head, looking down at her hands. "I researched," she said quietly, "before my memories were tangible. They all passed away. Quite some time ago." She carefully pressed each finger against the window frame, watching the tips whiten. "I believe I may have a great niece. If she is amenable, it would be... beneficial to speak to her."

"Of course," Steve said. He was behind her, and she didn't flinch when he laid his hands on her shoulders.

Peggy raised her eyes to the window. She could see the faint shadow of her reflection in the glass. "I suspect father might not have approved of me bringing home a Yank," she murmured, lifting her right hand to cover one of Steve's. "But I have no doubt you would have won him over."

"I don't know, Pegs," Bucky said from the table. "Steve can be a pain in the ass."

"He's not wrong," Natasha added. 

Steve snorted, his hands squeezing Peggy's shoulders. "Thanks, guys," he said dryly. "Nice to know how much you care."

"Don't look at us," Bucky said cheerfully. "We're just an unemployed Yank bum and a Soviet defector over here. We're even worse than you."

Peggy smiled unsteadily at her reflection as they needled one another. 

The affection in the room warmed her and reminded her of a place she had called home. This was home now, this place with other soldiers and survivors and fighters. Perhaps they were not blood relations, but they were just as close as those given to her by birth.

She let Steve draw her back to the table, and even managed to eat a little more, Steve’s arm comfortably around her waist. She spoke - haltingly - of her family, picking through memories that felt new and sharp and fragile. 

For their parts, her companions let her speak. They asked questions. They encouraged her to touch the memories, especially Natasha. 

Later, when the men were clearing the table away, Natasha and Peggy were curled on the couch with mugs of hot, sweet tea.

“How did it feel?” Natasha murmured.

“Feel?”

“When those memories came back?”

Peggy turned the cup in her hands. “Overwhelming,” she admitted. She searched Natasha’s face. “You know what that’s like.” It wasn’t a question.

Natasha nodded with a small smile. “The family was always the first thing they took away,” she said. “No connections, no affiliations, no trace of who and what you were before. When it comes back… it’s intense.” She met Peggy’s eyes. “I was lucky. I didn’t have to wait so long.”

Peggy uncurled her leg to knock her sock-covered foot against Natasha’s. There was little she could think of to say.

“We should rest,” she murmured. “I have the feeling the next few days won’t be easy.”

Natasha leaned forward to put her mug down on the coffee table. “You guys rest,” she said, “I’ll take night watch. I put in a call. Barton is on our perimeter, keeping eyes on the outside.”

It was a comfort and a relief.

Natasha set herself up in the living room, taking the couch, which meant Peggy’s default option was Steve’s bed. Both men were talking quietly in the hall as she walked towards the room, and Barnes stepped back to let her through.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Pegs,” he said.

“No,” she said, catching his hand in one of hers and Steve’s in the other. “Both of you. I need to feel safe if I’m to rest.”

“No problem,” Steve said with a smile. “We’d only have trouble if Natasha was joining us. I don’t know how much more my bed can take.”

“She’s taking the night watch,” Peggy said, then led them into the bedroom.

Steve’s bed was large, which was good, but for three of them, it was still snug. Peggy curled on her side between them, Steve’s broad chest her pillow, and Bucky at her back to keep her warm. Steve left one of the small lamps on, dimmed down, and safely held between them both, Peggy managed to drift to sleep.

It wasn’t restful and it wasn’t unbroken.

More than once, she - or her sleeping companions - jerked awake. 

She didn’t know what they dreamed of, but her own nightmares were of blood and pain and a faceless man standing over the bodies of both the men who framed her. Her heart racing, she reached out, touching one, then the other, and only when she was sure they both were fine did she sleep again.

There were at least five nightmares of varying degrees of violence, but there was also some little sleep in between, and when she finally woke, it was because of a sudden chill at her back and the shift of the bed moving under someone’s weight.

Faint light was filtering through the curtains. Morning, at least, but early.

Sleepily, she looked over her shoulder.

“Barnes?”

Bucky, sitting on the edge of the bed, looked over his shoulder at her. He looked as exhausted as she knew she felt. “Can’t sleep anymore,” he murmured. “I’m going to head over to Tony’s. See if he made any progress.” 

She reached out and he caught her hand, squeezing it briefly.

“Call us if there’s any news,” Steve’s drowsy murmured came from her other side.

“Yes, sir, Captain America, sir,” Bucky said, but the playfulness in his tone was muted with weariness. “I’ll put the kettle on for you, Pegs.”

By the time she and Steve emerged from the room, Bucky was long gone, and the kettle was boiling. Natasha took one look at them to confirm they were both upright and unharmed, then curled down on the couch and went straight to sleep. It was a skill Peggy envied.

Peggy made tea while Steve made them breakfast, then she returned to the computer and resumed her searches on the footage sent over during the night. It must have been close to two hours later when an image, a face, caught her eye.

“Steve,” she whispered hoarsely. “Natasha.”

He was by her side in a heartbeat, and Natasha stumbled over from the couch, as Peggy tilted the screen towards them. 

The man on the screen was the last operative. He was not as dark-haired as she remembered him being, and there were lines around his eyes and mouth, but it was definitely him. He was standing in the lobby of the hotel. He had also located the camera and he was looking right into it with a small, knowing smile. 

“He knows we’re watching the hotel,” Steve said quietly. “When was this time-stamped?”

Peggy scaled the image down. “This morning,” she said, shivering. “Two hours ago.” She took a screen capture, sending a copy of it back to Stark so he could start tracking the man on other footage. 

“He wanted to be seen,” Natasha said, her voice low and hard. 

Peggy’s hands were trembling on the keyboard. “Yes,” she said quietly. 

She remembered that lesson: psychological intimidation. Put yourself into a position of power by making it clear to your enemy that you are there, aware of their presence, and you can make your move at any time you choose.

Her computer chimed, showing an incoming e-mail from Stark.

Peggy opened it at once. Steve leaned over her shoulder to read it too.

[Hey, Agent Grandma. Got Jarvis running facial recognition on this bozo. Let me know when Uncle Buck heads this way. T]

Peggy felt a chill wash through her down to her bones. 

She didn’t have to raise her head to know Steve had his cellphone out and was already trying to call Bucky. She didn’t need to know that Natasha had hers out and was on the line to Stark. She didn’t need to be told that the blade that had been hanging over their necks for twenty-hours had dropped, but not on her as she had feared.

It was wrong.

They had no reason for wanting him. To the world, Barnes was still a traumatised associate of Stark and Captain America. Most people wrote him off as ill and weak and useless, after so many years in and out of hospitals. 

But they had seen her with him, and they needed to lure her into the open.

Bait.

They had taken him as bait.

“Where’s the demand?” she said quietly, more to herself than to them. 

Steve hung up. “No answer,” he said. He looked pale and furious.

“Stark’s putting a trace on the cell.”

“Won’t be enough,” Peggy said, staring into nothing. “It’ll be in a rubbish bin in some side alley in Queens.”

A knock at the door made all three of them scramble up. Natasha had her gun in her hand at once, and Steve snatched up his shield as he approached the door.

“Who is it?”

“Jackson, Mr Rogers.”

All three of them breathed out. The superintendent. Steve opened the door to the man. “I’m sorry, Jackson,” he said, “but this…” He paused, frowning. The man was holding a massive bouquet of flowers and a parcel.

Jackson smiled ruefully. “We got a delivery downstairs and it’s too big for my office,” he said.

Peggy stared at the bouquet, rigid as a hunting dog. “Bring them in,” she said tersely. “Close the door.” She retreated back, watching guardedly as Steve carried the bouquet in. There were old codes, patterns, cues used back in the day. Colours and flowers were only part of it, and the bouquet screamed a warning. 

“Scan the parcel,” she said to Natasha, her voice clipped. 

Natasha nodded, taking out a device embossed with the Stark logo. “Biological matter,” she said, her eyes darting to Peggy. “No incendiaries.”

She knew what it contained, even before she slit the paper enclosing it. She lifted the lid of the box and looked down. Some part of her was screaming in silence. A single finger, shiny with decades-old scar tissue, was nestled in a bed of coloured cloth.


	46. Unequivocal

Peggy’s fist was buried in the wall.

Her chest was rising and falling raggedly. 

She wanted to kill something. Someone. 

They had Bucky. They had mutilated him to get her attention. 

Steve was even angrier than she was. The chair he’d been leaning on had cracked in half from his grip.

Natasha was the one to slit open the envelope and read the note that had come with the flowers and the severed digit. 

It was written in Russian, but Natasha translated it as she read aloud. “Matryoshka. You can see now that hiding is not an option. For each hour that you continue to conceal yourself behind stone walls, another piece of your pet will be delivered to you. If you wish to save him, hang a sheet from your window. We will contact you.”

Before she finished speaking, Steve was at the window. He shoved up the panel and thrust a sheet from the couch out to snap and flap in the chilly air.

By the wall, Peggy curled her metal fist. She could feel dust and brickwork and plaster in the joints, as she tore it free. “They know I wouldn’t leave people behind,” she said tersely. “They saw me with him. Know I’d save him.”

“Witnesses at the base,” Natasha said. “They saw you save me. They must have reported back.”

Something buzzed in the bouquet and Peggy crossed the floor, tearing the bundle open. The flowers scattered across the tabletop in a flood of water, and a phone sealed in a plastic bag clattered there. She snatched it up, opening the bag, and put it to her ear.

“I’m listening,” she snapped in Russian.

“Good.” The male voice was unfamiliar. “I will send you coordinates. You will be picked up there at the appointed time. Come unarmed, without back-up. No tricks. You are being watched. If you bring support, your friend will be hurt again.”

He hung up and she looked at the cell in disgust.

“What does he want?” Steve said. His arms were folded tight over his chest.

“You already know that,” she replied, breathing hard. “He’s sending a rendezvous point. I’m to be picked up in exchange for Barnes’s safety.”

“Fuck that,” Steve said abruptly. “They’ll kill him once they have you.”

Peggy’s hands contracted into fists. “No,” she said. “They know Karpov’s control word no longer works. They know that wiping isn’t entirely successful. They would keep him as their hostage for my compliance.”

“So they expect us just to sit and watch you go?” Steve said sharply.

She met his eyes. “They know our type, Captain,” she said. “We are the people who will not allow our men to be harmed. They will do harm to Barnes if we do anything but comply with their instructions. I cannot be accompanied or have shadows. They need me isolated.”

“Peggy, I promised I wouldn’t let them take you.”

She crossed the floor in three steps and pulled him down into a kiss that burned right through her. It was savage and it was urgent, and it was for all the time lost and wasted. He held her, his grip almost bruising at her waist, and she cupped his face between her hands, her brow to his. 

“Believe me,” she whispered, “I have no intention of surrendering myself to them.” She was breathing hard and her mind was whirling. It was astonishing what wrath could do to one’s focus. “Romanoff. The pack by the couch. The one I was meant to return to Stark.”

There was a clatter and rattle of things moving. “Got it.”

“Good,” Peggy kept her eyes fixed on Steve. “I will be going in there, unarmed, as they requested. They will check me for trackers. They will have eyes on me at all times. They need to believe I am defenceless and unsupported.”

“But? Steve prompted. 

Peggy drew back from him, still breathing hard. She took the pack from Natasha, opening it out on the only dry section of the table. There were weapons, naturally, but her focus was a small metal container the size of a matchbox. 

“Stark isn’t going to be happy to find out you have them,” Natasha murmured.

“Stark can kiss my arse,” Peggy replied succinctly, “and he’ll be damned grateful if these are the things to help us save Barnes.”

“These being?” Steve asked.

Peggy opened the box, revealing tiny metal grains that looked like sand. “Nano-trackers,” she replied. “They can be imbedded in the skin. Scanners don’t detect them. They’re too small to be picked up.” She snapped the box shut. “Tell Stark I need one of his microchips. I need it implanted and obvious. They’ll expect me to have that at least.”

“If you implant it, they’ll remove it,” Natasha said, “and they won’t be gentle about it.”

Peggy met her eyes. “I’m well aware of that, Romanoff. Needs must.”

“Once you’re in, what do we do?” Steve asked. “All guns or discretion?”

Peggy turned the box of trackers over in her hand. She could feel the grains rattling softly inside, and stared into nothing as she thought on it.

“My hope is that they will show Barnes to me to confirm proof of life and that they intend to keep him that way,” she said. “It may not be the case, but it’s the only option I can see at the present.” She drew a breath. “Once we stop moving, give an hour before coming in after us. As many or few as you deem necessary.”

“What about you and Barnes?” Natasha said.

Peggy smiled slightly. “Barnes and I can take care of ourselves,” she said.

“Peggy, he might be hurt. You might be too.”

Peggy tapped the small box against the metal of her palm. “Presently, we have no other choice. If he and I are capable, we will take care of matters as we can. I have no intentions of going down without a fight.”

Steve and Natasha exchanged looks, then Steve reluctantly nodded. “We’ll have your back.”

The cellphone buzzed on the table. 

Peggy picked it up, opening the message that had come through.

There were coordinates and a time.

“We have an hour to get there,” Peggy said. “They’re outside the city. I’ll need to fly to get there in time.”

“On it,” Natasha said. “Rogers, where’s the nearest helipad?”

“Three blocks over,” he replied, “Privately owned.”

Natasha had her cell out in a heartbeat, and headed out of the room to make the call.

Peggy looked at the phone in her hand. She wanted to crush it. Smash it to pieces. Instead, she set it down on the table, and set the nano-trackers down beside it. 

Before Steve could guess her intention, she pressed into his embrace and kissed him hard. His breath caught and he pulled her closer, but when she pushed him back down into a chair, when she straddled his thighs with her limbs, when her hands started pulling at his shirt, he caught her wrists.

“No, Peggy,” he said.

Her hands were shaking, pressing to his skin. “I want to,” she whispered. “Please.”

His hands were gentle around her wrists, holding them still. “We have time,” he said, “after this is all done with.”

She couldn’t look him in the face. “Do we? After this?”

He lifted one hand to cradled her cheek. “We do,” he said. “You’ll come home and we’ll have all the time we need, but after.”

Her fingers tensed in his shirt and she heard the fabric rip. “And what if I don’t?”

He kissed her once, lightly. “That’s not an option,” he said. “You and Bucky are both coming back.”

She wanted to beat at his chest and tell him they weren’t all heroes. People fell. People died. People didn’t always come back. But he had before, and she had as well, and maybe he could be right about it again, and maybe they would.

“If we don’t,” she said, her voice breaking, “you’re going to regret saying no.”

“And when you do,” he said gently, his fingers threading through her hair to curl around the back of her head, “I don’t want to regret saying yes.” He kissed her again, chastely. “You’re going to come back, and when you do, when this is over, we’re going to go dancing.”

It was all she could do to wrap her arms around him and hold him as tightly as she could, praying she could draw some little strength from him. She was terrified, and she knew he didn’t need to be told that. Instead, he just held her, stroking her back, her hair, her shoulders, until Natasha tapped on the door as she returned to the room.

“Stark’s sending over a helicopter,” she said. “They’re bringing what you asked for. We need to be there in ten minutes.”

Peggy nodded, reluctantly untangling herself from Steve’s arms.

“You’ll find us,” she said, standing over him.

“I will,” he promised, his hands light at her waist. “As soon as I can.”

She wanted to speak, but it felt like a lie, so she just kissed him once more, picked up the nano-trackers and the phone, then nodded to Natasha. “Let’s go.” 

Natasha, mercifully, didn’t say anything as they ran the three blocks. 

It wasn’t until they were standing in the elevator to the helipad that Peggy realised she hadn’t changed. She was still wearing one of Steve’s oversized shirts and a pair of Bucky’s shorts. It should have felt exposed and embarrassing, but instead, it was reassuring, a little of each of them carried with her.

“You sure you don’t want to take anything else with you?”

Peggy shook her head. “I don’t want to risk any further harm. They want me unarmed. They get me.”

“More fool them if they think you’re ever completely unarmed,” Natasha said with a snort.

The doors of the elevator opened, revealing the Stark helicopter on the landing pad. “Let’s hope so,” she murmured. She stepped out of the elevator and flicked open the box of nano-trackers, looking in at them. “Tell Stark I did mean to get these back to him.”

Natasha nodded to the helicopter. “Tell him yourself,” she said. “I’ll see you when this is over.”

Peggy watched the doors close, then turned back to the helicopter. Stark was sitting in the back, and pushed the door open for her as she approach. She climbed up into the seat opposite him, and the helicopter rose into the air immediately.

“Farewell parade?” she asked.

“I’d say launch of a maiden voyage,” he replied. “Just don’t count on me to smash a bottle of champagne on your hull.” He reached out and took her flesh arm, pressing a small machine against her arm. “This might sting.”

She hissed through her teeth as he punched a tracking chip into her skin. “Thanks.” She held out the box of nano-trackers. “And for these.”

“I wondered which of you had them.” He met her eyes, his expression unreadable. “How many do you need?”

“How many do you think?”

“If these guys are as bad as they sound, one cluster for every limb in case of…” He snapped the words off, his breath hissing between his teeth. “Let’s just say enough so we can find you.”

She nodded, watching distantly as he used a smaller device to propel the tiny trackers into the skin of her arms and legs. He looked at her expectantly and she pulled up enough of her shirt to reveal her midriff. Another was deposited just below her ribs and the last between her eyes. 

Stark leaned forward, running his thumb over the skin, checking for a mark. His face was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath. “Bring uncle Buck home,” he whispered, without looking her in the eye, his thumb warm and callused against her brow.

She brought up both her hands to enclose his, carefully. “That’s the intention,” she said quietly. “If I don’t… if we can’t, look after Steve for me.”

Tony met her eyes, nodded unsteadily, as the helicopter swung out over the city.


	47. Unaccompanied

The rendezvous was several miles from civilisation, at an abandoned packing plant.

Stark had deposited her in a field nearby, and Peggy walked the rest of the way. 

The area was overgrown, the grass knee-deep as she pushed through it. It was damp and cold from recent rainfall. Her shorts were flecked with water by the time she stepped into the deserted parking lot. The concrete was cracked, plants growing up in the gaps.

She wasn't surprised to find that they were waiting for her. As soon as she was within range of the main doors, her chest lit up, in the sights of sniper rifles. She raised her hands to eye-level, open and empty, and walked into the building. 

Half a dozen identical plain trucks were lined up within the main warehouse, each one flanked by armed mercenaries. Some of them had badges on their sleeves. Peggy could identify every one of them. Foolish.

"A little excessive, don't you think?" she said in English.

"In your case, no such thing, Matryoshka," one of the men said in Russian. "We remember what you did to Karpov."

Her lips curved in an expression that was far from a smile. "So do I," she said.

"Kneel," the same man said again. 

She complied, fixing her eyes on him. 

He nodded curtly in approval. "Strip her and search her."

He was not the man from the telephone. He was not the operative, but he was the leader of this group. Primary target. His face was concealed, but there were other markers: height, weight, build, slight incline of right shoulder. She committed every detail to memory as two of the mercenaries moved closer, wary.

When it became clear she wasn't about to lash out, they stripped her bare. The building was cold, the wind sharp, but she had dealt with worse. She set her jaw, keeping her eyes on their leader, as they searched her for any markers and scanned her body.

"A tracker," one of them called, gripping her wrist.

"Really, Matryoshka?" The man didn't sound surprised, only amused.

"You've taken someone of value to Tony Stark," she said blandly. "He wouldn't let me come without it. I had no means to remove it."

One of them had a knife, and her blood was thick and hot as they opened her arm. The pain was sharp, but she only clenched her teeth together and made no sound. The tracker was flicked out onto the stone and crushed under a boot.

She was dragged back to her feet, her clothing and shoes left on the ground.

"I want to see Barnes," she said quietly.

"In good time," the man said and nodded to one of the people holding her. She was struck, hard, across the back of the head. Darkness dropped like a veil. 

They were unaware when she returned to consciousness, a short time later. Too many years of managing her body meant she woke as still and silent as she had been a moment earlier.

How long, she couldn't be certain, but they were moving. 

The floor was hard and cold beneath her back. She was still bare, she observed. Aside from the wound to her arm and the blow to her head, as far as she could tell her body was undamaged.

She regulated her breathing and took in her surroundings as best she could. There was tape over her eyes and her mouth, but it was not sufficient to impede her breathing. A greater concern came from the shackles. Thick and heavy, they locked around half her forearms and from ankles to halfway up her calves. Worse still, they were sectioned off, a thick guard of metal for each limb. Her arms were overlapped, the hand of one resting against the elbow of the other. A position of restraint and helplessness, she suspected.

Excessive, perhaps, but not unwise.

There were at least two people in the vehicle with her. She could hear them breathing, though neither of them spoke. One male, heavyset, from the depth of his breaths. The other was either female or a slight male.

She shifted her weight slightly, and heard them both tense.

Alert, then, and wary. Unfortunate.

One of the two - definitely female - reported back in a language Peggy didn't recognise. She pushed herself onto one side, but a booted foot came down on the middle of her chest, slamming her back down on her back. Fireworks blazed behind her eyelids as her head hit the floor again.

"Stay down," the man snapped.

She lay back compliantly, breathing deeply through her nose, gathering as much oxygen into her lungs as she could to clear her head. The foot remained pressed against her chest and she wondered idly if he realised how easy it would be for her to snap his ankle, even with her arms bound.

For Bucky's sake, she refrained from the impulse.

The journey continued a little longer, then the doors were opened and she was dragged out, rough hands under her arms. 

The shackles around her ankles were unlocked to allow her to walk, but the blindfold remained in place, and her mouth was left sealed. 

She flexed each leg, both of them stiff and aching, and forced herself to walk tall. The impression of strength was important. She did not lean on her captors, only letting them guide her, rather than depending on them.

There were stairs, and then what felt like an elevator, going upwards. 

None of the people around her spoke. They just half-dragged, half-led her in the direction she needed to move. When they emerged from the elevator, the floor was rough beneath her feet, bare concrete, and she was jerked to a halt.

It was no surprise, then, that her legs were kicked out from under her. She expected it and caught herself before she fell, keeping her feet. Though blind, she turned her face in the direction of her assailant, her fists curling. The shackles on her arms tightened, but whether in response to the tensing of her muscles or by some external force, she didn't know.

"Stand down." She recognised the voice. Operative three. The man from the telephone. The words were directed at her assailant, but they were also meant for her. She ignored them, her shoulders tensed. "Some clothing for our guest. Remove the tape."

The sudden brightness dazzled her and she tasted blood where the tape had torn her lower lip. 

She squinted around, taking in the surroundings. A dozen people, all armed. A modern building. More like an open-plan, undecorated office. The windows were tinted, obscuring the world outside, blinding her to her location. She could tell from the position of the sun that it was late in the day, but that was all. Could be anywhere in the world, but the electrical sockets suggested they were still within the United States. 

So there had been no flights while unconscious. That was a small comfort in the grand scheme of things.

Her mouth was dry, which made her voice rasp when she said again, "Barnes. I want to see him."

"There are conditions, Matryoshka."

She turned her eyes to Operative Three. Unlike every other person in the room, he was not masked. He was not even armed. Like her, he didn't have to be. He was dressed in a tailored suit, his dark hair sleek, threaded with silver. His hands were casually thrust into his trouser pockets, mocking her with his passiveness.

"I am not in the mood for games," she said quietly. "You took something I consider useful. I want it back."

"Useful?" He put his head to one side, watching her thoughtfully. "No. It's more than that. You are... fond of this man, this Barnes. You came here because of him. You give up your liberty because of him. No, no. He is not 'useful' to you." His lips curved in a smirk. "Except perhaps for your own entertainment."

She stared back at him impassively, her hands tight fists. "You have a sordid imagination."

He walked closer to her, but she was pleased to notice he stayed just out of range of her. Still afraid. That was good. 

“Barnes, James Buchanan. Former sergeant in the 107th and later in the private platoon of Captain America. First surviving test subject of Arnim Zola. Priority five target of the operative named by the west as the Winter Soldier.” His slate-grey eyes were speculative. “Twenty years of driving the man to breaking point, and you return to play with the pieces.”

She said nothing. 

“Tell me why this man is of value to you,” the Operative said, “and try not to lie, Matryoshka.”

“I want to see Barnes,” she said, her voice flat.

He shook his head minutely with a sigh, as if she had failed a test. “As I said, there are conditions,” he said. 

“I want,” she said again, calm, even, murderous, “to see Barnes. Now.”

He jerked his head in a sharp nod, and her upper arms were gripped cruelly from either side. Only when she was pinioned and held back did he come any closer. He was taller than her, at least a head, and when he caught her chin in his hand, his grip was hard.

“Conditions,” he said again, his voice as cold as hers. “Your behaviour dictates his well-being. At this moment, your behaviour does not… satisfy me. You will obey and comply and you will be taken to your plaything. Do I make myself clear?”

Her mouth turned up. She could have bitten him, made him bleed. “Yes.”

“Then tell me why this man is valuable to you.”

Peggy forced her body to relax. The tension in the cuffs around her arms eased. “He tended my wounds,” she said with complete honesty. There was no reason to lie. There was also no reason to elaborate. Only Steve could really understand why Bucky was important.

The Operative’s eyes narrowed. “Your wounds. You expect me to believe that?”

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Believe what you like,” she said. “It’s the truth.”

He released her chin, stepping back. The response had thrown him, she could tell. “This man who weeps and begs and cowers?” His eyes were on her face. “You drove him mad. Why would he tend you?”

“You said it yourself,” she replied quietly, “I drove him mad. Maybe he believes I have come to complete my mission. Maybe he’s trying to preserve himself. I don’t know. I don’t ask. I only know he does what I order him to do.”

“And yet you would give your freedom for him?”

She inclined her head. “His closest friend is Captain America. You saw what the man did to HYDRA. What do you imagine he would do to me, if I refused to save his friend? He waved the sheet at the window, not I.”

“He doesn’t sacrifice people for others,” the Operative pointed out. “He’s famous for it.”

“Barnes isn’t anyone,” she replied, schooling her heartbeat to remain calm, smothering all the cues and tells she knew she had if she tried to blatant a lie. “Barnes was his childhood friend. He nursed him back from madness. He would give anything to keep him safe.” She hesitated. As much as she hated to do so, there were assumptions she knew she could use. “You were watching the window, I expect. I tried to persuade him against this.”

He barely moved his head, but it was enough of a nod. She wanted to break his teeth with her cuffs. To look in on her and Steve’s farewell, to imagine it was something as crude as sexual blackmail. But then, he had known her differently, a long time ago, and he had seen how the Winter Soldier used her wiles as weapons. He saw what she had been then, not who she truly was, and that, she knew, was his mistake. 

“He wants Barnes safe. He does not believe you would kill me.” She looked down at her arms, then back at him. “This way, his honour is preserved.”

The Operative was silent for several minutes, his hands in his pockets. “Very well,” he said. “I will let you see Barnes. He will live, as long as you cooperate. Am I understood?”

Peggy nodded curtly. “Is he here?”

He motioned to the two men holding her arms. “They will take you to your cell. You will be provided with clothing and your wound will be tended. Then you will see him.”

“No.” Peggy braced her feet. “I want to see him now. Proof of life.”

The Operative sighed, as if she had failed another test. “Very well, but his punishment for your impatience is on your head.”

While they waited, she was given clothes: rough, heavy combat uniform. Her guards only unshackled one arm at a time to let her pull the shirt on, then locked her arms back together in front of her body. Her feet were still bare and there was blood on her skin, but she didn’t care.

It felt like an eternity before the elevator doors opened again.

Peggy forced herself to stay calm, her eyes on the Operative. She didn’t turn, not even at the sound of feet dragging along the rough concrete floor. Not at the sound of heavy breathing. Not until their prisoner was dropped in front of the Operative, the breath rushing out of him in a smothered yelp.

Peggy’s eyes slid downwards. 

Bucky was there, spilled on the floor, blood at his lips, his maimed hand hugged tightly to his chest. He was whimpering softly, curled up tightly on himself. He wasn’t the same man who had walked out the door that morning. He looked broken.


	48. Union

Peggy wanted to move forward, to reassure Bucky, but she knew she couldn't. Her arms were still locked together, and even if they were free, showing physical concern would only make matters worse for the man.

His eyes were barely cracked open, but she could see the irises. They were directed at her, beneath his lashes. The lid of one eye flickered minutely.

"Hold her," the Operative said, lazily. "Redanski, the tools, if you please."

She was pulled back, held tighter by no less than four people, as another man stepped forward. He wasn't one of the armed soldiers. He was dressed in a shirt and trousers, not quite as smartly as the Operative, and carrying a tray of tools. She felt acid boil in her throat at the memory of other fussy little men with tools and wires and metal. 

"Denisov."

Another one of the armed men lowered his gun to pull Bucky's right arm and maimed hand away from his chest. Bucky whimpered, but didn't fight him. Even when his hand was jerked upwards and his remaining fingers were pulled open from his palm, he just lay there.

Peggy could see what they intended as clearly as she could see the cauterised stump of his right forefinger. Her arms tensed and she felt the cuffs tighten. Based on body response, then. "Don't."

"You were cautioned," the Operative said mildly. "Your behaviour dictates his well-being."

"This is unnecessary!" she snarled, lunging forward in the grip of the people holding her. Superhuman strength was a useful side-effect of the experiments carried out on her. Another man, then another, and another all piled on to hold her down. Seven against one, all occupied in restraining her. Evening the odds somewhat. "Stop! Leave him alone!"

The Operative looked dispassionately at her. "A point must be made."

"You'll regret this," she promised, struggling against his men, her eyes fixed on his. 

He moved closer to her, knotting his hand into her hair. "Perhaps," he said, "but I doubt that." He twisted her head in Bucky's direction as the little man with the soldering blade took Bucky's hand in his. "You'll watch, and you'll learn."

She saw the twitch of Bucky's lips. She forced her body to absolute calm and stillness. The pressure of the cuff decreased. Not loose enough to slide free, not yet. She twisted her hand, felt the click of her thumb popping out of place.

"No more playing," she said, pulling her head free from the Operative's hand. He looked down at her in anger, and that was why he didn't see Bucky snatch the blade from the little man's hand and slice him across the eyes. The scream echoed off the bare walls and the Operative's head jerked around.

Bucky was upright, grey-faced but eyes blazing. 

Before the Operative could even register what was going on, he had flipped the blade to his right hand, whirled around and plunged it - sizzling - into the neck of the soldier who had been holding him. His left hand snatched up the soldier's gun, and the rake of automatic gunfire cut across the room, laying out three others. The hits were blind luck. Bucky was swaying, shaking and ashen.

He swung back around, breathing hard, his gun pointed at the cluster of people still pinioning Peggy, and she nodded urgently for him to fire. He didn't and she cursed aloud when the operative grabbed her by the hair. He twisted his fist, pulling it tight and jerking her in front of him as a human shield, and barked orders in a language Peggy didn't know. The people holding her released their grip, reaching for weapons, but staying close.

"Drop the weapon, Barnes," the Operative murmured. He had a knife up beneath Peggy's chin, and she remembered too well what he could do with one of those.

"Or you'll what?" Bucky rasped. "Kill her? Don't think so. You want her alive." The gun was still trained on them, the tight mass of bodies, and when he pulled the trigger, the soldier on her right made a choked sound and folded, gun clattering on the concrete. Bucky's eyes were darting all over, the sniper's eyes she remembered from the war. "You okay, Pegs?"

With all attention on him, she twisted her arm within the cuff. The metal didn't tighten. She smiled tightly at him. "I'm good," she said, and with a violent jerk, ripped her hand free from the cuff, her skin tearing. A clump of hair ripped from her scalp, in the Operative’s fist, but that was inconsequential. She swung the cuff and her left arm around, mowing the mercenaries down and throwing herself back to knock the others off-balance. 

They went down like skittles.

Bucky was by her side in a second, tossing her the knife. She caught it clumsily, using its weight against her false arm to snap her thumb back in place. One of the fallen men raised a gun, and she shoved Barnes to one side, out of the firing line, and dived towards their assailant, bringing the knife up under his ribcage. 

The man died with a gurgle and his gun was still warm when she snatched it up, rolling onto her knees, taking out two more with a shot to the heart and a shot to the head. Bucky was raking others down with his gun held in his left and balanced on the forearm of his right.

The elevator was open. Doorways too. More mercenaries were stepping over the bodies of their comrades. No more playthings or pets. They were coming to kill or be killed, and there were too many.

An EMP ricocheted off her left arm, sending shooting pain through her, and she searched out Barnes in his vivid blue and white shirt, aiming around him. Her shots weren’t steady. Most hit, but she couldn’t vouch for accuracy, and when the gun ran short, she lobbed it, cracking a woman so hard between the eyes that she folded like a wet towel.

The room was filled with gunfire and the bullets tore into the plaster of the ceiling, filling the world with clouds of dust. Bucky, she knew. They were better at covert attacks. He was giving them cover. 

Someone struck her wildly from behind, knocking her spinning, and the gun skittered from her hand. She somersaulted back, dodging a follow-up blow and came to her feet. The cuff still weighed her left arm down, but she straightened up, her eyes on the Operative.

He didn't look so pristine anymore. His nose was broken and his face a mask of blood where her arm had struck him. That, she realised, was why he hadn't shot her. His eyes were so swollen, she was amazed he could still see. She could see the gun in one hand and the knife in the other, and he moved, snake-fast in her direction. 

It wasn't the most elegant battle, her arm hindered by the cuff, his vision obscured, but it was no less violent because of it. 

She bent, tossing him over her shoulder, but his arm locked around her hips, breaking the momentum. He landed hard behind her and she felt the blade slide across her stomach and ribs, leaving stinging pain in its wake as she slammed her metal elbow hard into the middle of his stomach. He grunted, his breath exploding against her throat, and she threw herself back as hard as she could, smashing him to the floor with her own body.

She rolled off him almost as soon as they hit, and felt the knife in his hand cut through the air a hair's breadth from her throat. It caught on her cheek, but only fleetingly, and her hands groped blind across the floor. 

The knife she had dropped moments before, to take up the gun, was there, sticky with blood, beneath her fingers. The Operative was coming after her, and she spun on her knees and swung her left arm with all her strength. The sound of his jaw shattering echoed over the gunfire, and he gave a wet, smothered scream.

She reversed the blow, knocking him down and followed through with the knife, shaking in her other hand. It cut through his throat like a hot blade through butter. He fell, gagging. Peggy stared blankly at him, the knife bruising her hand. His blood was spreading across the concrete floor, and his eyes were wide, staring, as his fingers clutched at his throat, as if he could save himself.

He was the last of them, the last she had trained.

She could hear footsteps behind her, but couldn’t find the strength to lift her head or to turn or to see. Her head ached unbearably. 

“Bucky,” she whispered hoarsely.

“Pegs! Look out!” His shout came from across the room, and she lifted her head to see a man bearing down on her with a knife.

Something swept out through the air, large and shining and metallic, and the man was thrown backwards, crashing to the floor. The projectile bounced off the floor, rolling to a halt beside her, and she stared at it. The knife slipped from her fingers, and she touched the shining star at the heart of Captain America’s shield. 

“Peggy!” Steve yelled. “Behind you!”

Her heart leapt and she snatched up the shield. With strength she didn’t think she had left, she whipped around and slammed it into the face of a soldier. He went down, and she kicked him hard in the crotch, then swung her arm and sent the shield spinning back to its master.

Beyond him, she saw the flash of red hair and black clothing.

Back-up had arrived.

“You’re late!” she called to him, a smile breaking onto her face.

He caught the shield, flipping over another man and bringing the shield down hard on his head. The man’s body buckled under him, and Steve landed lightly on his feet in front of her. 

“Actually,” he said, “we’re early. You told us to wait an hour.”

She couldn’t help laughing. “Semantics, Captain,” she said unsteadily. “Shall we?”

His smile lit up his face. “My pleasure.”


	49. Unaccustomed

Steve knew better than to take her anywhere near a hospital. 

In the end, when the battle was done - and she could have sworn she saw a red and gold man blasting through the building - her body decided enough was enough. The gun she had stolen fell from her hand. Her legs folded beneath her, taking her by degrees to the floor. Her eyes closed before she felt Steve catch her.

When consciousness returned, the world around her was quiet, and it smelled fresh and clean. No gun smoke or plaster dust or blood.

She opened her eyes, blinking as the room came into focus.

Soft colours, warm, bright. 

Not the flat, but familiar. She tilted her head, wincing as pain ran from her skull through every nerve ending. Plain walls with landscape photographs. Shelves with one or two books. Sketch pads. Pencils.

Steve’s room in Stark’s building.

“Hey.”

She turned her head the other way, slowly now. Steve was sitting beside the bed in the armchair. There was reddened patch on his right cheek, as if he’d been propping himself up on his hand. He looked tired, and had a few visible bruises on his face, but he looked happy.

Her own lips twitched in a tired smile. “Hello,” she whispered back. 

He got up and came across to the bed. There was a pitcher on the bedside table and he filled a glass with water. “You’ve been out for a while,” he murmured, slipping an arm under her shoulder and gently helping her to sit up, pillows tucked behind her back. “I was worried.”

She winced, leaning back against the pillows. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m quite fine.”

“Hm.” He opened a bottle of pills, pouring a couple into his palm. “Apart from the severe concussion, fractured skull, laceration to your spleen, a minor cardiac arrest, several cracked ribs…”

She laughed hoarsely, then winced, pressing her hand to those very ribs. “Point taken,” she said, breathing out. She noticed, with relief, that her left arm had been liberated, and turned over her metal hand, checking for damage.

“Tony figured out how to undo it,” Steve explained, holding out the pills to her. “He needed something to do while they patched up Bucky.”

Peggy carefully took the glass and pills. “How… is he all right?”

“He’s better than you right now,” he replied. “Take your pills, and we can go and see him,” he said. “We even have a hovering chair, so you don’t get jarred.”

Peggy washed down the painkillers, then sipped some more of the water. “Tony again?” He nodded. “I expect he needed a great deal of distraction.”

“Buck kicked him out the treatment room,” Steve said with a crooked smile. “Me too. Said we were fussing over him like he was about to die. Said he liked your technique better.” He held out his hand, and she slipped her metal fingers into it, the pressure racing up the sensors in her arm. “You looked good with my shield.”

She balanced the water glass between her right hand and her thigh. She remembered throwing it more than once, when they fought back to back. It felt natural, passed between them as readily as any other weapon. “Is that so?”

He lifted her hand and kissed the back of her metal fingers. “I’d like to draw you with it,” he murmured, and she could see the flush spread across his cheeks.

“Just with that?” The blush darkened, and she tightened her fingers around his hand, just enough to keep him from drawing back. She felt bold and she felt free for the first time in years. “I think we might arrange that.”

His eyes widened, and she smiled a little more, then winced when her cheek tugged.

She set aside the glass, lifting her flesh hand to touch her face. The Operative’s blade had mercifully not cut deep, but a narrow gash ran upwards from the right corner of her jaw, all the way across her cheek and nose. 

“I must look a fright,” she murmured.

“Not your healthiest,” Steve agreed, “but I’ve never seen you look better.”

He always was so very sentimental.

As he promised, as soon as the painkillers were working - adding a pleasant, fuzzy edge to her world - he lifted her into the hovering chair and steered her out into the main floor of Stark Tower. 

Natasha raised her eyes over the edge of a book. She was sitting on the couch, as if she hadn’t been waiting for them to emerge. Like Steve, she was bruised, but it was minor in comparison to Peggy’s own wounds.

“Carter,” she said with a small smile.

Peggy inclined her head. “Romanoff,” she said. “Good job.”

Natasha lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I had nothing better to do,” she said. She glanced at Steve. “Stark took Barnes down to the lab already.”

“Oh god…” Steve groaned. “He knew he was meant to be resting.”

Natasha’s lips twitched. “Which one? Stark or Barnes?”

“Both,” Steve said. “Which level?”

Romanoff told them, and Steve grumbled under his breath as he took Peggy down in the elevator. Jaunty elevator music was playing, and Peggy’s lips twitched. It had been a long time since she’d heard “The Star-Spangled Man With the Plan”. She remembered it well, and from the way Steve’s jaw was clenched and he was impatiently drumming his fingers on the handle of her chair, he remembered it too. 

“Dare I ask what we’re going to find?” she asked to divert him for mercy’s sake.

“God knows,” Steve said. “Bucky’s been trying to persuade Tony to give him an iron-man suit. This might be the occasion he gets it.”

Peggy considered it. It wasn’t necessarily unwise. Armour of some variety was useful. 

“Steve,” she said, frowning. “Was Stark there? When you came for us? I remember red and gold.”

He chuckled. “You think you could keep him away when Buck was in trouble?”

She lifted her hand, and he lowered his to take it. “I’m glad you found us,” she whispered. “I didn’t know if you would in time.”

His hand squeezed hers. “I know,” he said softly.

They didn’t say anything more for the rest of the journey to the lab, his hand warm and firm around hers. 

She had never seen Stark’s laboratory, but when the doors opened, she was unsurprised to see it was every bit as chaotic as his father’s labs had been. There were a dozen experiments in various stages, piles on desks which were already loaded down with machinery. There were screens and projections on the walls. She stared in astonishment. There were robots. A whole series of robots.

“Would you just hold still?” Stark’s voice drifted over irritably from behind what looked like an old-fashioned car. With Starks, it was always difficult to tell.

“I’ve been holding still for an hour,” Bucky’s voice retorted, and Peggy felt relief well up within her. It was one thing to be told he was well. It was another entirely to hear him speaking and know it was true. “You didn’t say it would take this long!”

“Buck? Tony?”

Two heads popped up over an array. “Hey! It’s the walking wounded!” Bucky exclaimed.

“Buck!” Tony yelped as Bucky limped around the edge of the unit. 

His face was swollen almost beyond recognition. He was leaning heavily on a crutch, which was tucked under his left arm, and his torso was bare, mottled black and blue. It seemed his battle had been almost as thorough as hers.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” he said, hobbling his way towards her.

She held out her hand with a tired smile. “Sergeant.”

He hesitated, then held out his right hand. She looked at it, then at him. Bucky gave her a small, lop-sided smile, and with a lot of concentration, managed to make the metal forefinger move up and down in a wave. There were wires trailing from it, and from the way Stark was hovering anxiously nearby, it wasn’t fully-fitted.

Her metal hand gently caught Bucky’s, and she heard the delicate tink of the metal of his finger against the metal of her palm.

“How about that?” he said, and his voice was shaking. “We match now. Tin arm, tin finger, and tin shield.”

Peggy wondered why her vision was blurring and was startled to feel hot tears rolling down her cheeks when she blinked. “You,” she said, groping for Steve’s hand with her free one, “are both very stupid men. Very, very stupid men.”

Steve’s hand closed around hers, warm and firm and gentle, and he leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

“We love you too, Peggy.”


	50. Us

The breeze carried the scent of flowers from the hanging baskets and the fresh cut grass of the garden. 

Peggy drew her feet up onto the padded couch in the gazebo, and looked out over the open grounds of the hotel. It was a far cry from the hotel that her family had stayed in so many years before, but it was no less pleasant. 

The sun was still quite high, and it was warm enough to wear nothing but her summer dress and a light cardigan. Even her sandals - still speckled with sand from the beach - had been abandoned to let her walk barefoot across the grass to her current seat.

“Mind if I join you?” 

She looked back over her shoulder at Steve with a small smile. “Never.”

He slid down onto the padded bench right behind her, his arms slipping around her waist, and she closed her eyes, leaning back into him. It felt so strange, to simply spend time together in such a relaxed manner, without any new threat hanging over their head. 

“It’s a beautiful night,” she murmured.

“We should be able to see a lot of stars, when they turn the lights down,” he agreed, breathing in deeply. Her own chest rose and fell in the same rhythm, and her hands lightly came to rest on his arms. 

“Bucky?” she asked quietly.

“Getting our food brought out here,” he said, nuzzling her hair. “Or giving it a good try. I think they’ll be helpful.”

She nodded, happy to simply sit there, in his embrace.

It had taken over a fortnight for her and Bucky both to recover from the worst of their injuries, and by the time they were both functional again, Stark and Natasha declared they had organised a holiday to Peggy’s destination of choice. 

They’d arrived on the island at both the best and worst possible time: the height of summer, when tourists flooded into the area.

What Stark neglected to mention was that he had contacted the hotel and paid an exorbitant fee to book out the whole place. Only two of the fourteen grand rooms were occupied, and some nights, only one of them was. 

Peggy felt she ought to complain about such high-handedness, but to have such a place to herself and Steve and Bucky was a blessing.

They spent their days visiting quaint little shops or wandering the beaches or even just sunning themselves by the pool. It was quiet and safe, and exactly the kind of place Peggy knew she needed to be, to pick up the last scattered pieces of herself.

There were still nightmares, of course, but they were not as terrible as they had been. Some nights, she even slept through without waking, and those nights felt like a precious gift. 

Those nights led to mornings of comfortable embraces, and sometimes, she would just bask in touching Steve, enjoying his closeness and his warmth. She still faltered, hesitating, when it came to the final step, but Steve never once complained. He just seemed happy to have her there, and she knew he would wait.

She’d said that to Bucky once, looking wistfully at Steve.

“Yeah,” he’d replied with a small, quiet smile. “Til the end of the line.”

The trouble was that she didn’t want to wait that long. 

That was why she had plans in motion.

Meanwhile, Bucky, it seemed, was successful. He padded across the grass and flung himself down into one of the vacant seats. “Food is coming,” he declared smugly. “I even got them to do some proper French fries as well. None of these… chip things.”

“Barbarian,” Peggy murmured with a smile. She opened her eyes, sitting up. “One day, I will teach you how to be a civilised human being.”

“Good luck,” Bucky snorted, grinning at her. He drummed his right hand on the table, his false finger clinking emphatically. “You think they’ve got anything that plays music? I think we should have music.”

“Maybe later,” Steve said, his hand resting lightly against the base of Peggy’s back. “You’ve got us for now.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “This is more of that civilised stuff, isn’t it?”

“We might even converse,” Peggy said, unable to hide her smile. “Like adults.”

“As technically the oldest here,” Bucky said with a snort, “I think I get to decide.”

Peggy gave him a look. “The eldest? We’re all within a year of one another.”

“I don’t count time spent as a popsicle,” Bucky said haughtily. “Time without a pulse doesn’t count, so I am, officially, oldest.”

Steve was laughing silently, his whole body shaking. “You do talk a load of bull, Buck.”

“Cheeky whipper-snapper,” Bucky grumbled, but he was smiling as their food was brought out.

The food was delicious, the fish so fresh it might have still been in the sea that morning, and even Bucky didn’t complain about the quality of the chips when they were presented. They had finished their desserts and were enjoying coffee by twilight when Peggy looked up at Steve. He looked luminously happy, and it warmed her to her toes.

She touched her hand to Steve’s chest. “I need to fetch something,” she murmured. “Wait here?”

He slid to one side to let her pass, his hands moving to her waist to help her. “Want another drink?”

She hesitated, then said, “Red wine. One small glass.”

It would, she thought, give her a little dutch courage.

She returned to the room she shared with Steve - and occasionally with Bucky, when the mood took them all - and opened up her suitcase. There was a particular item that Pepper had helped her pick out, and had been given the Bucky Seal of Approval.

She unfolded it from the bottom of the case, smoothing the fabric.

It was red, a deep, rich, blood red.

Her mouth felt dry and her heart was racing as she stripped out of her sundress and stepped into the gorgeous piece of luxury. It wasn’t exactly the same as the one she had worn before, so many decades ago, but it was similar and it flattered her just as well.

Unless he was blind, Steve could hardly miss the similarities.

She checked herself in the mirror, both pleased and embarrassed by the eager flush in her cheeks. Her hair was still shorter than she would have liked, her scalp still healing in places, but she looked quite lovely.

By the time she returned, Bucky had played his part. A music system had been arranged at the doors of the main veranda, and music was playing, lilting across the pool and through the gardens of the hotel. 

The grass was cool between her toes as she made her way back towards the gazebo, where both men were sitting, side by side, talking, smiling, over a drink. It could have been a bar in London, but it wasn’t. So much had happened since then. So much water under the bridge.

Bucky was the one to turn his head first, and she saw his mouth curl in an approving smile, but her eyes went to Steve as he looked at her. He rose, as he had then, and his breath seemed to catch just as it had before.

“I believe,” she said, approaching the lower step of the gazebo, “that you owe me a dance, Captain.”

It was adorable the haste with which he scrambled out from behind the table, knocking it with his knee, and almost tipping it over.

“Agent Carter,” he said, drinking her in with his eyes, as he stepped down. The music changed, and it was slower, melodious. He looked lost for a moment, then offered her his hand. “May I have this dance?”

She laid her hand in his. “I should hope so.”

There was no polished dance floor or band or anyone else dancing, but as he took her in his arms beneath the star-speckled sky, the grass soft beneath her feet, and the music played, she found she had nowhere else she would rather be.

His hand was soft at the base of her back, and he let her lead, the steps slow and lazy. When she laid her head on his shoulder, she felt the shiver of the sigh escaping him, as they slowly swayed to the music.

“Worth the wait?” she whispered, turning her face up to his. 

The love in his eyes took her breath away. “Yes,” he replied breathlessly, and leaned down to kiss her.

THE END


End file.
